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O. p. FITZGERALD. 

(1895.) 



California Sketches. 



NEW AND OLD 



/f-^ 



BY BISHOP OfP/FlTZGERALD 



ILLUSTRATED. 



'■^Atid one upon the West 
Turned an eye that tvould not rest, 
For far-off hills whereon his Joys had been,^^ 



Nashville, Tenn.: 

Publishing House ok the M. E. Church, South 

Barbee & Smith, Agents. 

1895. 






Entered, according to Act of (Congress, in the year 1894, 

Bv O. P. Fitzgerald, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



In Exchange 
Univ. of North Garoli«a 
JAN 31 1934 



• • • 

• • • 

• -.• 



THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 



If these California Sketches, new and old, shall be- 
guile a lonely hour, or rouse a kindlier feeling or 
higher aspiration in any human soul, I shall be satisfied. 

The Author. 

July, 1894. 



PREFACE TO THIS CONSOLIDATED EDITION. 

Soon after these Sketches first came out in book 
form, the suggestion was made to me by friendly read- 
ers that they should be illustrated. Successive editions 
have been printed from the original plates, and the 
kindly appreciation of the reading public has encour- 
aged me to bring out a new edition in a single volume, 
in which some ne^v Sketches are introduced and some 
of the older ones are omitted. 

The two former volumes are thrown into one, and the 
price put at a figure that will place it within the reach 
of all sorts of readers. 

This new and consolidated edition has pictures illus- 
trating the text. Whether these pictures have en- 
hanced the interest of the work, the future will deter- 
mine. The artist was left to follow his own taste in 
the choice and treatment of subjects. This statement 
will relieve the author from any imputation of undue 
" subjectivity " in these pictorial delineations. 

To the old friends and the new these Sketches are 
presented as they are, with the hope that they will not 
only furnish entertainment for leisure moments, but 
leave in the reader's mind a deposit of profitable sug- 
gestion and gracious inspiration. 

O. P. Fitzgerald. 

July, 1895. 
(4) 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

My First Sunday in the Mines 7 

r- .12 
CiSSAH A 

Lost on Table Mountain ^3 

Fulton -^^ 

The Fatal Twist 37 

Stranded 4^ 

LOCKLEY 4^ 

An Interview 53 

Father Cox "^ 

The Ethics of Grizzly Hunting <'>7 

Stewart • • • 74 

'a Mendocino Murder 8i 

My First California Camp Meeting 87 

The Tragedy AT Algerine 95 

The Blue Lakes loi 

Old Tuolumne 106 

Ben 107 

A Youthful Desperado no 

North Beach, San Francisco 114 

My Mining Speculation 122 

Dick 125 

The Diggers i33 

Father Fisher 144 

The California Madhouse 153 

The Reblooming 161 

San QuENTiN 168 

Tod Robinson 177 

Jack White 184 

Camilla Cain 190 

corraled 192 

The Rabbi 203 

Ah Lee 209 



6 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Page 

CcELA Vista 214 

The Emperor Norton 215 

Buffalo Jomes 221 

Suicide in California 227 

Mike Reese 238 

Uncle Nolan 245 

Old Man Lowry 250 

The California Politician 2515 

Bishop Kavanaugh in California 265 

A Day 276 

California Traits 284 

Father Acolti 29^ 

California Weddings 299 

How the Money Came 312 

Having Some Fun 316 

At the End 318 



MY FIRST SUNDAY IN THE MINES. 

SONORA, in 1855, was an exciting, wild, 
wicked, fascinating place. Gold dust and 
gamblers were plentiful. A rich mining 
camp is a bonanza to the sporting fraterni- 
ty. The peculiar excitement of mining is near 
akin to gambling, and seems to prepare the gold 
hunter for the faro bank and monte table. The 
life was free and spiced with tragedy. The men 
were reckless, the women few and not wholly 
select. The convemionalities of older commu- 
nities were ignored. People dressed and talked 
as they pleased, and were a law unto themselves. 
Even a parson could gallop at full speed through 
a mining camp without exciting remark. To me 
it was all new, and at first a little bewildering, but 
there was a charm about it that lingers pleasantly 
in the memory after the lapse of all these long 
years from 1855 to date. 

Sonora was a picture unique in its beauty as I 
first looked down upon it from the crest of the 
highest hill above the town that bright May morn- 
ing. The air was exhilarating, electric. The sky 
was deep blue, without a speck of cloud. The town 
lay stretched between two ranges of hills, the cozy 
cottages and rude cabins straggling along their 
sides, while the full tide of life flowed through 
Washington Street in the center, where thousands 
of miners jostled one another as they moved to 
and fro. High hills encircled the place on all 
sides protectingly, and Bald Mountain, dark and 

(7) 



8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

bare, lifted above all the rest, seemed to watch the 
queen city of the mines like a dusky duenna. The 
far-off Sierras, white and cold, lay propped against 
the sky like shrouded giants under their winding 
sheets of snow. Near me stood a lone pine which 
had escaped the ruthless ax because there was a 
grave under it marked by a rude cross. 

Descending to the main street again, I found it 
crowded with flannel-shirted men. They seemed 
to be excited, judging from their loud tones and 
fierce gesticulations. 

" They have caught Felipe at French Camp, 
and they will have him here b}^ ten o'clock," said 
one of a group near me. 

*' Yes, and the boys are getting ready to swing 
the cursed greaser when he gets here,"' said an- 
other, savagely. 

On inquir}^, I learned that the gentleman for 
whose arrival such preparation was being made 
was a Mexican who had stabbed to the heart a 
policeman named Sheldon two nights before. The 
assassin fled the town, but the sheriff and his posse 
had gotten on his track, and, pursuing rapidly, had 
overtaken him at French Camp, and were now re- 
turning with their prisoner in charge. Sheldon 
was a good-natured, generous fellow, popular with 
the '* boys." He was brave to a fault, perhaps a 
little too ready at times to use his pistol. Two 
Mexicans had been shot by him since his call to 
police duty, and, though the Americans justified 
him in so doing, the Mexicans cherished a bitter 
feeling toward him. Sheldon knew that he was 
hated by those swarthy fellows whose strong point 
is not forgiveness of enemies, and not long before 
the tragedy was heard to say, in a half-serious tone : 
" I expect to die in my boots." Poor fellow! it 
came sooner than he thought. 

C5 




" The first man that touches that jail door dies^^ 



MY FIRST SUNDAY IN THE MINES. 9 

By ten o'clock Washington Street was densely 
thronged by red and blue shirted men, whose re- 
marks showed that they were ripe for mischief. 

"Hang him, I say! If we allow the officers 
who watch for our protection when we are asleep 
to be murdered in this way, nobody is safe. I say 
hang him! " shouted a thick-chested miner, grit- 
ting his teeth. 

''That's the talk! swing him!" '* Hang him ! " 
"Put cold lead through him! " and such like ex- 
pressions were heard on all sides. 

Suddenly there was a rush of the crowd toward 
the point where Washington Street intersected with 
the Jamestown road. Then the tide flowed back- 
ward, and came surging by the place where I was 
standing. 

" There he comes ! at him, boys ! " "A rope ! a 
rope! " *' Go for him! " shouted a hundred voices. 

The object of the popular execration, guarded 
by the sheriff and a posse of about twenty men, was 
hurried along in the middle of the street, his hat 
gone, his bosom bare, a red sash around his waist. 
He was a bad-looking fellow, and in the rapid 
glances he cast at the angry crowd around him 
there was more of hate than fear. The flashes of 
his dark eyes made one think of the gleam of the 
deadly Spanish dirk. The twenty picked men 
guarding him had each a revolver in his hand, 
with Maj. Solomon, the sheriff, at their head. 
The mob knew Solomon. He had distinguished 
himself for cool courage in the Mexican war, and 
they were well aware that those pistols were pa- 
raded for use if occasion demanded. 

The prisoner was taken into the Placer Hotel, 
where the coroner's jury was held, the mob sur- 
rounding the building and roaring like a sea. 

"There they come! go for him, boys! " was 



lO CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

shouted as the doors were flung open, and FeHpe 
appeared, attended by his guard. 

A rush was made, but there was Solomon with 
his twenty men pistol in hand, and no man dared 
to lay a hand on the murderer. With steady step 
they marched to the jail, the crowd parting as the 
sheriff and his posse advanced, and the prisoner 
was hurried inside and the doors locked. 

Bafl^ed thus, for a few moments the mob was 
silent, and then it exploded with imprecations and 
yells: *' Break open the door! " '*Tear down the 
jail!" ** Bring him out!" "Who has a rope?" 
"Out with him!" 

Cool and collected, Solomon stood on the door- 
step, his twenty men standing holding their revolv- 
ers ready. The County Judge Quint attempted 
to address the excited mass, but his voice was 
drowned by their yells. The silver-tongued Henry 
P. Barber, an orator born, and whose sad career 
would make a romance of thrilling interest, essayed 
to speak, but even his magic voice was lost in the 
tornado of popular fury. 

I had climbed a high fence above the jail yard, 
where the whole scene was before me. When 
Barber gave up the attempt to get a hearing from 
the mob, there was a momentary silence. Solo- 
mon saw the opportunity, and, lifting his hand, he 
said : ' ' Will you hear me a moment ? I am not fool 
enough to think that with these twenty men I can 
whip this crowd. You can overcome us by your 
numbers and kill us if you choose. Perhaps you 
will do it — I am ready for that. I don't say I can 
prevent you, but I do say" — and here his eye 
kindled and his voice had a steel-like ring — " the 
first man that touches that jail door dies! " 

There was a perceptible thrill throughout that 
■dense mass of human beings. No man volunteered 



MY FIRST SUNDAY IN THE MINES. II 

to lead an assault on the jail door. Solomon fol- 
lowed up this stroke: " Boys, when you take time 
to reflect, you will see that this is all wrong. I was 
elected by your votes, and you are acting in bad 
faith when you put me in a position where 1 
must violate my sworn duty or hght you. This 
is the holy Sabbath da}'. Back in our old homes 
we have been used to different scenes from this. 
The prisoner will be kept, and tried, and duly pun- 
ished by the law. Let us give three cheers for 
the clergy of California, two of whom I see pres- 
ent [pointing to where my Presbyterian neighbor, 
the Rev. S. S. Harmon, and I were perched con- 
spicuously], and then go home like good citizens." 

Courage and tact prevailed. The mob was con- 
quered. The cheers were given wath a will, the 
crowd melted away, and in a few minutes the jail 
yard was clear. 

I lingered alone, and was struck with the sud- 
den transition. The sun was sinking in the west, 
already the town below was wrapped in shade, the 
tops of the encircling hills caught the lingering 
beams, the loftier crest of Bald Mountain blazing 
as if it were a mass of burnished gold. It was the 
calm and glory of nature in sharp contrast with 
the turbulence and brutality of men. 

Wending my way back to the hotel, I seated 
myself on the piazza of the second story, and 
watched the motley crowd going in and out of the 
'* Long Tom ' ' drinking and gambling saloon across 
the street, musing upon the scenes of my first Sun- 
day in the mines. 



CISSAHA. 

1 FIRST noticed him one night at prayer meet- 
ing at Sonera, in the Southern Mines, in 1855. 
He came in timidly, and took a seat near the 
door. His manner was reverent, and he 
watched the exercises with curious interest, his 
eyes following ever}^ gesture of the preacher, and 
his ears losing not a word that was said or sung. 
I was struck with his peculiar ph^^siognomy as he 
sat there with his thin, swarthy face, his soft, sad 
black eyes, and long black hair. I could not make 
him out; he might be Mexican, Spanish, Portu- 
guese, "Kanaka," or what not. He waited un- 
til I passed out at the close of the meeting, and, 
bowing very humbly, placed half a dollar in my 
hand, and walked away. This happened several 
weeks in succession, and I noticed him at church 
on Sunday evenings. He would come in after the 
crowd had entered, and take his place near the 
door. He never failed to hand me the half dol- 
lar at the close of every service, his dark, wist- 
ful-looking eyes lighting up with pleasure as I took 
the coin from his hand. He never waited to talk, 
but hurried off at once. My curiosity was excited, 
and I began to feel a special interest in this 
strange-looking foreigner. 

I was sitting one morning in the little room on 
the hillside, which was at once dining room, par- 
lor, bedchamber, and study, when, lifting my 
eyes a moment from the book I was reading, 
there stood my strange foreigner in the door. 
" Come in," 1 said kindly. 
(12) 



CISSAIIA. 13 

Making profound salaams, he ruslied impulsive- 
ly toward me, exclaiming in broken English: 
"My good brahmin!" "My good brahmin!" 
with a torrent of words I could not understand. 

I invited him to take a seat, but he dechned. 
He looked flushed and excited, his dark eyes flash- 
ing. I soon found that he could understand Eng- 
lish much better than he could speak it himself. 

*' What is your name ! " I asked. 

'* Cissaha," he answered, accenting strongly the 
last syllable. 

"Of what nation are you?" was my next question. 

** Me Hindoo — me good caste," he added rather 
proudly. 

After gratifying my curiosity by answering my 
many questions, he told his business with me. 
It was with great difficulty that I could make out 
what he said ; his pronunciation was sadly imper- 
fect at best, and when he talked himself into an 
excited state his speech was a curious jargon of 
confused and strange sounds. The substance 
of his story was, that, though belonging to a caste 
which was above such work, necessity had forced 
him to take the place of a cook in a miners' board- 
ing house at a notorious camp called aptly Whisky 
Hill, which was about three miles from Sonora. 
After six months' service, the proprietor of the 
establishment had dismissed him with no other pay 
than a bogus title to a mining claim. When the 
poor fellow went to take possession, the rightful 
owners drove him away with many blows and 
much of that peculiarly emphatic profanit}^ for 
which California was rather noted in those early 
days. On going back to his employer with the 
story of his failure to get possession of the min- 
ing claim, he was driven away with cursings and 
threats, without a dollar for months of hard work. 



14 



CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 



This was Cissaha's story. He had come to me 
for redress. I felt no little sympathy for him as 
he stood before me, so helpless in a strange land. 
He had been shamefully wronged, and I felt indig- 
nant at the recital. But I told him that while I 
was sorry for him, I could do nothing; he had bet- 
ter put the case in the hands of a lawyer. I sug- 
gested the name of one. 

** No, no ! "he said passionately; " you my good 
brahmin; 3'ou go Whisky Hill, you make Flank 
Powell pay my money! " 

He seemed to think that as a teacher of religion 
I must be invested also with some sort of authority 
in civil matters. I could not make him under- 
stand that this was not so. 

" You ride horse, me walk; Flank Powell see 
my good ^brahmin come, he- pay money/' urged 
Cissaha. 

Yielding to a sudden impulse, I told him I would 
go with him. He bowed almost to the floor, and 
the tears, which had flowed freely as he told his 
tale of wrongs, w^ere wiped away. 

Mounting Dr. Jack Franklin's sorrel horse — my 
pen pauses as I write the name of that noble Ten- 
nesseean, that true and generous friend — I started 
to Whisky Hill, my client keeping alongside on 
foot. 

As we proceeded, I could not help feeling that I 
was on a sort of fool's errand. It was certainly a 
new role for me. But my sympathy had been ex- 
cited, and I fortified myself by repeating mentally 
all those scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments which enjoin kindness to strangers. 

I found that Cissaha was well known in the 
camp, and that he was generally liked. Every- 
body seemed to know how he had been treated, 
and the popular feeling was on his side. Several 



CISSAHA. 15 

parties confirmed his statement of the case in every 
particuhir. Walking along among the mining 
claims, with a proud and coniident air he would 
point to me, saying: " There my good brahmin — 
he make Flank Powell pay my money now." 

*' Powell is a rough customer," said a tall young 
fellow from New York, who stood near the trail 
with a pick in his hand ; " he will give you trouble 
before you get through with him." 

Cissaha only shook his head in a knowing way 
and hastened on, keeping my sorrel in a brisk trot. 

A stout and ill-dressed woman was standing in 
the porch of Mr. Powell's establishment as I rode 
up. 

*' Is Mr Powell at home? " I asked. 

*'Yes; he is in the house," she said dryly, 
scowling alternately at Cissaha and me. 

** Please tell him that I would like to see him." 

She went into the house after giving us a part- 
ting angry glance, and in a few minutes Mr. Pow- 
ell made his appearance. He looked the ruffian 
that he was all over. A huge fellow, with enor- 
mous breadth between the shoulders, and the 
chest of a bull, with a fiery red face, blear blue 
eyes red at the corners, coarse sandy hair, and a 
villainous tout c//s^w^/^ every way, he was as bad a 
specimen of my kind as I had ever met. 

" What do 3'ou want with me? " he growled out, 
after taking a look at us. 

*'I understand," I answered in my blandest 
tones, " that there has been some difficulty in mak- 
incr a settlement between vou and this Hindoo man, 
and at his request I have come over to see if I can 
help to adjust it." 

*' Damn you! " said the ruffian, *' if you come 
here meddling with my affairs, Pll knock you off 
that horse." 



l6 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

He was a rough customer to look at just then. 

Cissaha looked a little alarmed, and drew near- 
er to me. 

I looked the man in the eye and answered: ** I 
am not afraid of any violence at your hands. 
You dare not attempt it. You have cruelly 
wronged this poor foreigner, and you know it. 
Every man in the camp condemns you for it, and 
is ashamed of your conduct. Now, I intend to 
see this thing through. I will devote a year to it 
and spend every dollar I can raise if necessary to 
make you pay this debt! " 

By this time quite a crowd of miners had gath- 
ered around us, and there were unmistakable ex- 
pressions of approval of my speech. 

** That's the rio;ht sort of talk!" exclaimed a 
grizzly-bearded man in a red shirt. 

*' Stand up to him, parson! " said another. 

There was a pause. Powell, as I learned after- 
ward, was detested in the camp. He had the 
reputation of a bully and a cheat. I think he 
was likewise a coward. At any rate, as I warmed 
with virtuous indignation, he cooled. Perhaps he 
did not like the expressions on the faces of the 
rough, athletic men standing around. *' What do 
you want me to do? " he asked in a sullen tone. 

*' I want you to pay this man what you owe 
him," I answered. 

The negotiations begun thus unpromisingly end- 
ed very happily. After making some deduction 
on some pretext or other, the money was paid, 
much to my relief and the joy of my client. Mr. 
Powell indulged m no parting courtesies, nor did 
he tender me the hospitalities of his house. I 
have never seen him from that day to this. I have 
never wished to renew his acquaintance. 

Cissaha marched back to Sonora in triumph. 



CISSAHA. 17 

A few days after the Whisky Hill adventure, as 
I was sitting on the rear side of the little parson- 
age to get the benefit of the shade, I had another 
visit from Cissaha. He had on his shoulder a 
miner's pick and shovel, which he laid down at 
my feet. 

" What is that for? " I asked. 

" ^fy good brahmin look at pick and shobel, 
then no break, and find heap gold," said he, his 
face full of trust and hopefulness. 

I cast a kindly glance at the implements, and 
did not think it worth while to combat his inno- 
cent superstition. If good wishes could have 
brought him good luck, the poor fellow would 
have prospered in his search after gold. 

From that time on he was scarcely ever absent 
from church services, never omitting to pay his 
weekly half dollar. More than once I observed 
the tears running down his cheeks as he sat near 
the door, eye and ear all attent to the service. 

A da}^ or two before my departure for Confer- 
ence, at the end of m}^ two years in Sonora, Cis- 
saha made me a visit. He looked sad and anxious. 
"You go way?" he inquired. 

"Yes; I must go," I answered. 

" You no come back Sonora? " he asked. 

" No; I cannot come back," I said. 

He stood a moment, his chest heaving with 
emotion, and then said: "Me go with you, me 
live where you live, me die where you die," al- 
most the very words of the fair young Moabite. 

Cissaha went with us. How could I refuse to 
take him? At San Jose he lived with us, doing 
our cooking, nursing our little Paul, and making 
himself generally useful. He taught us to love 
curry and to eat cucinnbers Hindoo fashion — that 
is, stewed with veal or chicken. He was the gen- 
2 



l8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

tlest and most docile of servants, never out of 
temper, and always anxious to please. Little 
Paul was very fond of him, and often he would 
take him off in his baby wagon, and they would 
be gone for hours together. 

He never tired of asking questions about the 
Christian religion, and manifested a peculiar delight 
in the words and life of Jesus. One day he came 
into my study and said: " Me want you to make 
me Christian." 

'' I can't make you a Christian; Jesus can do 
it," I answered. 

He looked greatly puzzled and troubled at this 
reply, but when I had explained the whole matter 
to him he brightened up and intimated that he 
wanted to join the Church. I enrolled his name 
as a probationer, and his delight was unbounded. 

One day Cissaha came to me all smiling, and 
said: " Me want to give all the preachers one big 
dinner." 

"Very w^ell," I answered; "I will let you do 
so. How many do you want?" 

"Me want heap preachers, table all full," he 
said. 

He irave me to understand that the feast must 
be altogether his own — his money must buy every- 
thing, even to the salt and pepper for seasoning 
the dishes. He would use nothing that was in the 
house, but bought flour, fowls, beef, vegetables, 
confectionery, coffee, tea, everything for the 
great occasion. He made a grand dinner, not 
forgetting the curry, and w^ith a table full of 
preachers to enjoy it he was a picture of happi- 
ness. His dark face beamed with delight as he 
handed around the viands to the smiling and ap- 
preciative guests. He had some Hindoo notion 
that there was great merit in feasting so man}- be- 



CISSAHA. 19 

longing to the brahmin caste. To him the dinner 
was a sort of sacrifice most acceptable to Heaven. 

My Oriental domestic seemed very happy for 
some months, and became a general favorite on 
account of his gentle manners, docile temper, and 
obliging disposition. His name was shortened to 
*' Tom " by the popular usage, and under the in- 
structions of the mistress of the parsonage he be- 
gan the study of English. Poor fellow! he never 
could make the sound of f or z, the former ahvays 
turning to p^ and the latter to g^ upon his tongue. 
I believe there are no p's or g's in the Hindoo- 
stanee. 

A change came over Cissaha. He became all 
at once moody and silent. Several times I found 
him in tears. Something was the matter with 
him. That was clear. 

One afternoon the secret came out. He came 
into my room. There were traces of tears on his 
cheeks. '' I go 'way — can stay with my pather 
[father] no more, ' he said with a quiver in his 
voice. 

" Why, what is the matter? " I asked. 

** Debbil in here," he answered, touching his 
forehead. '' Debbil tell me drink whisky; me no 
drink where my pather stay, so must go." 

" Why, I did not know you ever drank whisky; 
where did you learn that? " I asked. 

''Me drink wdth the boys at Flank Powell's — 
drink beer and whisky. No drink for long time, 
but debbil in here [touching his forehead] say 
7nust drink." 

He was a picture of shame and grief as he stood 
there before me. How hard he must have fouirht 
agamst the appetite for strong drink since he had 
been with me I And how full of shame and sor- 
row he was to confess his weakness to me ! He 



20 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

told me all about it: how he had been treated to 
beer and whisky by the good-natured miners, and 
how the taste for liquor had grown on him, and 
how he had resisted for a time, and how he had 
at last yielded to the feeling that the devil was too 
strong for him. That the devil was in it, he 
seemed to have no doubt. And truly it was so — 
the crudest, deadliest of devils, the devil of drink! 
As a Hindoo, in his own countr}^ no strong drink 
had ever passed his lips. The fiery potations of 
Whisk}? Hill were too much for him. 

*' You should pray, Cissaha." 

'* Me pray all night, but debbil too strong — 
me must drink whisk}^ " he said vehemently. 

He left us. The parting was very sad to him 
and us. He had a special cry over Httle Paul. 

"You my pather [to me]; you my mother [to 
my wife] ; I go, but me pack you both always in 
my belly!" 

We could but smile through our tears. The 
poor fellow meant to say he would still bear us in 
his grateful heart in his wanderings. 

After a few months he came to see us. He 
looked seedy and sad. He had found employ- 
ment, but did not stay long at a place. He had 
stopped awhile with a Presbyterian minister in the 
Sacramento Valley, and was solicited by him to 
join the Church. 

"Me tell him no I " he said, his e3^e flashing; 
" me tell him my pather done make me Christian; 
me no want to be made Christian again." 

The poor fellow was true to his first love, sad 
Christian as he was. 

" Me drink no whisky for four, five week, — me 
now try to stop. Give me prayer to say when 
debbil get in here," touching his head. 

That was what he had come for chiefly. I gave 



CISSAHA. 21 

him the form of a short and simple prayer. He 
repeated it after me in his way until he had it by 
heart, and then he left. 

Once or twice a year he came to see us, and al- 
ways had a pathetic tale to tell of his struggles 
with strong drink, and the greed and violence of 
men who were tempted to oppress and maltreat a 
poor creature whose weakness invited injustice. 

He told us of an adventure when acting as a 
sheep herder in Southern California, whither he 
had wandered. A large flock of sheep which he 
had in charge had been disturbed in the corral a 
couple of nights in succession. On the third 
night, hearing a commotion among them, he 
sprang up from his bunk and rushed out to see 
what was the matter. But let him tell the story: 
*' Me run out to see what's matter; stars shine 
blight; me get into corral; sheep all bery much 
scared, and bery much run, and bery much jump. 
Big black bear jump over corral fence and come 
right for me. Me so flighten me know nothing, 
but raise my arms, run at bear, and say, 
E-e-e-e-e'c! " prolonging the shrill scream and be- 
coming terribly excited as he went on. 

*' Well, how did it end? " I asked. 

" Me scream so loud that bear get scared too, 
and he turn, run bery fast, jump over corral, and 
run away." 

We did not doubt this stor3\ The narration 
was too vivid to have been invented, and that 
scream was enough to upset the nerves of any 
grizzl3\ 

We ""ot to lookin<x for him at re<£Lilar intervals. 
He would bring candies and little presents for the 
children, and would give a tearful recital of his 
experiences and take a tearful leave of us. He 
was lighting his enemy and still claiming to be a 



22 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Christian. He said many things which showed 
that he had thought earnestly and deeply on reli- 
gious subjects, and he would end by saying: 
"Jesus, help me! Jesus, help me! " 

He came to see us after the death of our Paul, 
and he wept when we told him how our dear boy 
had left us. He had had a long sickness in the 
hospital. He had before expressed a desire to go 
back to his own country, and now this desire had 
grown into a passion. His wan face lighted up 
as he looked wistfully seaward from the bay win- 
dow of our cottage on the hill above the Golden 
Gate. He left us with a slow and feeble step, 
often looking back as long as he was in sight. 

That was the last of Cissaha. I know not 
whethe? he is in Hindostan or the world of spirits. 



LOST ON TABLE MOUNTAIN. 



TABLE MOUNTAIN is a geological curios- 
ity. It has puzzled the scientists, excited 
the wonder of the vulgar, and aroused the 
cupidity of the gold hunter. It is a river 
without water, a river without banks, a river whose 
bed is hundreds of feet in the air. Rising in Cala- 
veras County, it runs southward more than a hun- 
dred miles, winding gracefully in its course, and 
passing through what was one of the richest gold 
belts in the world. But now the b%^tling camps 
are still, the thousands who delved the earth for 
the shining ore are gone, the very* houses have 
disappeared. The scarred bosom of Mother 
Earth alone tells of the intensely passionate life 
that once throbbed among these rocky hills. A 
deserted mining camp is in more senses than one 
like a battlefield. Both leave the same tragic im- 
pression upon the mind. 

What is now Table Mountain was many ages 
ago a river flowing from the foot of the Sierras 
into the San Joaquin Valley. A volcano at its 
head discharged its lava into it, and it slowly 
rolled down its bed, and, cooling, left the hard vol- 
canic matter to resist the action of the elements by 
which the surrounding country was worn away, 
until it was left high in the air, a phenomenon to 
exercise the wits of the learned, and a delight to 
the lover of the curious in nature. 

I can modestly claim the honor of having 

(23) 



^4 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

preached the first sermon on the south side of 
Table Mountain, where Mormon Creek was 
thronged with miners, who filled Davy Jamison's 
dining room to attend religious service on Wednes- 
day nights. It was a big day for us all when we 
dedicated a board house to the worship of God 
and the instruction of youth. It was both a 
church and schoolhouse. I have still a very vivid 
remembrance of that occasion. My audience was 
composed of the gold diggers on the creek, with 
half a dozen women and nearly as many babies, who 
insisted on being heard as well as the preacher. 
I '' kept the floor " until two long, lean yellow dogs 
had a disagreement, showed their teeth, erected 
their bristles, sidled up closer and closer, growl- 
ing, until they suddenly flew at each other like 
tigers, and fought all over the house. My plan 
was not to notice the dogs, and so, elevating my 
voice, I kept on speaking. The dogs snapped 
and bit fearfully, the women screamed, the chil- 
dren became frantic, stiffening themselves and 
turning purple in the face; a bushy-whiskered 
man with a red head kicked the dogs from him 
with loud imprecations, while Davy Jamison used 
a long broom upon them with great energy but 
with unsatisfactory result. Those yellow dogs 
were mad, and didn't care for kicks or brooms. 
They stuck to each other, and fought over and 
under the benches, and along the aisle, and under 
my table, and everywhere! I did not keep on — 
I had changed my mind, or rather had lost it, and 
found myself standing bewildered and silent, the 
thread of my discourse gone. A good-humored 
miner winked at me in a way that said: "They 
were too much for you." The dogs were finally 
ejected. The last I saw of them they were roll- 
ing down the hill, still fighting savagely. I re- 



LOST ON TABLE MOUNTAIN. 25 

sumed my discourse, and finished amid a steady 
but subdued a-a-a-a-a-h ! of the quartet of ba- 
bies. It is astonishing how long a delicate baby 
can keep up this sort of crying, and never get 

hoarse. 

There were such strong signs of a storm one 
Wednesday afternoon that I almost abandoned 
the idea of tilHng my appointment on Mormon 
Creek. The clouds were boihng up around the 
crests of the mountains, and the wind^ blew in 
heavy gusts. But, mounting the famous iron-gray 
pacing pony, I felt equal to any emergency, and 
at a "rapid gait cUmbed the great hill dividing 
Sonora from Shaw's Flat, and passing a gap in 
Table Mountain, was soon dashing along the 
creek, facing a high wind, and exhilarated by the 
exercise. My miners were out in force, and I was 
glad I had not disappointed them. It is best in 
such doubtful cases to go. 

By the time the service was over the weather was 
still more portentous. The heavens were covered 
with thick clouds, and the wind had risen to a 

gale. 

"You can never find your way home such a 
night as this," said a friendly miner. '' You can't 
see your hand before you." 

h was true, the darkness was so dense that not 
the faintest outline of my hand was visible an inch 
from my face. But I had confidence in the lively 
gray pony, and resolved to go home, having left 
the mistress of the parsonage alone in the little 
cabin which stood unfenced on the hillside, and 
unprotected by lock or key to the doors. Mount- 
ing, I touched the pony gently w^ith the whip, 
and he struck off at a lively pace up the road 
which led along the creek. I had confidence in 
the pony, and the pony seemed to have confidence 



26 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in me. It was riding by faith, not b}^ sight; I 
could not see even the pony's neck — the darkness 
was complete. I always feel a peculiar elation on 
horseback, and, delighted with the rapid speed w^e 
were making, was congratulating myself that I 
would not be long in getting home, when — horror! 
I felt that horse and rider were falling through 
the air. The pony had blindly paced right over 
the bank of the creek, no more able to see than I 
was. Quick as a thought I drew my feet out of 
the stirrups, and went headlong over the horse's 
head. Striking on my hands and knees, I was 
stunned at first, but soon found that beyond a 
few bruises and scratches I was not much hurt, 
though my watch was shattered. Getting on my 
feet, I listened for the pony, but in vain. Noth- 
ing could be heard or seen. Groping around a 
little, I stumbled into the creek. Erebus could 
not be darker than was that night. Having no 
notion of the points of the compass, I knew not 
which way to move. Long and loud I called for 
help, and at length, when I had almost exhausted 
myself, an answer came through the darkness, 
and soon a party appeared with a lantern. The}^ 
found me on the edge of the creek, and the pony 
about midway down the bank, w^here he had 
lodged in his fall, bracing himself with his fore 
feet, afraid to move. With great difficulty the 
poor beast, which was trembling in every limb 
with fright, w^as rescued from his perilous and un- 
comfortable position, and the whole party marched 
back to Jamison's. The pon}^ w^as lamed in the 
fore shoulder, and my hands and knees were 
bleedingr. 

Taking a small hand lantern with half a candle, 
and an umbrella, I started for Sonora on foot, leav- 
ing the pony in the corral. The rain began to 



LOST ON TABLE MOUNTAIN. 2/ 

fall just as I began to ascend the trail leading up 
the mountain, and the wind howled fearfully. A 
particularly heavy gust caught my umbrella at a 
disadvantage and tore it into shreds, and I threw^ 
it away and manfully took the rain, which now 
poured in torrents, mingled with hail. Saturated 
as I was, the exercise kept me warm. My chief 
anxiety w^as to prevent my candle from being put 
out by the wind, and I protected my lantern with 
the skirt of my coat, while I watched carefully for 
the narrow^ trail. Winding around the ascent, jump- 
ing the mining ditches, and dripping with the rain, 
I reached the crossing of Table Mountain, and be- 
gan picking my way among the huge lava blocks 
on the summit. The storm king of the Sierras 
was on a big frolic that night! I soon lost the 
narrow trail. My piece of candle was burning 
low^ — if it should go out ! A text came into my 
mind from which I preached the next Sunday: 
" JVa/k zuJiile yc have the light. '^ It was strange 
that the whole structure of the discourse shaped 
itself in my mind while stumbling among those 
rugged lava blocks, and pelted by the storm, w^hich 
seemed every moment to rage more furiously. I 
kept groping for the lost trail, shivering now with 
cold, and the candle getting very low in my lan- 
tern. I was lost, and it was a bad night to be lost 
in. The wand seemed to have a mocking sound 
as it shrieked in my ears, and as it died away in a 
temporary lull it sounded like a dirge. I began to 
think it would have been better for me to have 
taken the advice of m}^ Mormon Creek friends and 
w^aited until morning. All the time I kept mov- 
ing, though aimlessly. Thank God, here is the 
trail ! I came upon it again just where it left the 
mountain and crossed the Jamestown road, recog- 
nizing the place by a gap in a brush fence. I 



28 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Started forward at a quickened pace, following the 
trail among the manzanita bushes, and winding 
among the hills. A tree had fallen across the 
trail at one point, and in going round it I lost the 
little thread of pathway and could not find it again. 
The earth was flooded with water, and one spot 
looked just like another. Holding my lantern 
near the ground, I scanned keenly every foot of it 
as I made a circle in search of the lost trail, but 
soon found I had no idea of the points of the com- 
pass — in a word, I was lost again. The storm was 
unabated. It was rough work stumbling over the 
rocks and pushing my way through the thick 
manzanita bushes, bruising my limbs and scratch- 
ing my face. Almost exhausted, I sat down on 
the lee side of a large pine tree, thinking I would 
thus wait for daylight. But the next moment the 
thought occurred to me that if I sat there much 
longer I w^ould never leave alive, for I was getting 
very cold, and would freeze before morning. I 
thought it was time to pray, and I prayed. A 
calm came over me, and, rising, I resumed my 
search for the lost trail. In five minutes I found 
it, and following it I soon came in sight of a light 
which issued from a cabin, at the door of which I 
knocked. At first there was no answer, and I re- 
peated the thumps on the door with more energy. 
I heard whispering inside, a step across the floor, 
then the latch was drawn, and as the door was 
partially opened a gruff voice said: "Who are 
you? and what do you want here at this time o' 
night?" 

*' Let me in out of the storm, and I will tell 
you," I said. 

** Not so fast, stranger. Robbers are mighty 
plenty and sassy round here, and you don't come 
in till we know who you are," said the voice. 



LOST ON TABLE MOUNTAIN. " 29 

I told them who I was, where I had been, and 
all about it. The door was opened cautiously, 
and I walked in. A coarse, frowzy-looking woman 
sat in the corner by the fireplace, a rough-looking 
man sat in the opposite corner, while the fellow who 
had let me in took a seat on a bench in front. I 
stood dripping, and ready to sink from fatigue, 
but no seat was offered me. 

" This is a pretty rough night," said one of the 
men complacently; "but it's nothing to the night 
we had the storm on the plains, when our wagon 
covers was blowed off, and the cattle stampeded, 
and"— 

" Stop! " said I, ** your troubles are over, and 
mine are not. I want you to give me a piece of 
candle for my lantern here, and tell me the way 
to Sonora." 

The fact is, I was disgusted at their want of 
hospitality, and too tired to be polite. It is vain 
to expect much politeness from a man who is very 
tired or very hungry. Most wiv^es find this out, 
but I mention it for the sake of the young and in- 
experienced. 

After considerable delay, the frowzy woman 
got up, found a candle, cut off about three inches, 
and sulkily handed it to me. Lighting and plac- 
ing it in m}^ lantern, I made for the door, receiv- 
ing these directions as I did so: "Go back the 
way you came about two hundred yards, then take 
a left-hand trail, which will carry you to Sonora 
by way of Dragoon Gulch." 

Plunging into the storm again, I found the trail 
as directed, and went forward. The rain poured 
down as if the bottom of the heavens had fallen 
out, and the earth was a sea, the water coming 
above my gaiters at every step, and the wind al- 
most lifting me from my feet. I soon found that 



30 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

it was impossible to distinguish the trail, and trust- 
ing to my instinct I pressed on in the direction of 
Sonora, which could scarcely be more than a mile 
away. Seeing a light in the distance, I bent my 
steps toward it. In my eagerness to reach it I 
came very near walking into a deep mining shaft 
— a single step more, and this sketch would never 
have been written. Making my way among huge 
bowlders and mining pits, I reached the house in 
which was the hght I had followed. Knocking at 
the door, a cheerful voice said, " Come in." 
Pushing open the door, I entered, and found that 
I was in a drinking saloon. Several men were 
seated around a table playing cards, with money 
piled before them, and glasses of strong drink 
within reach. A red-faced, corpulent, and good- 
natured Duchman stood behind the bar, and was 
in the act of mixing some stimulant with the flour- 
ish of an expert. 

*' Where am I?" I asked, thoroughly bewil- 
dered, and not recognizing the place or the per- 
sons before me. 

** Dis is de Shaw's Flat Lager Beer Saloon," 
said the Dutchman. 

So this was not Sonora. After losing the trail I 
had lost my course, and gone away off north of 
my intended destination. The men knew me, and 
were very polite. The kind-hearted Dutchman 
offered me alcoholic refreshment, which I politely 
declined, placed a whole candle in m}' lantern, and 
gave me man}^ good wishes as I again took the road 
and faced the storm. Gambling is a terrible vice, 
but it was a good thing for me that the card play- 
ers lingered so long at their sport that rough night. 
Taking the middle of the road, I struck a good 
pace, and meeting with no further mishap except 
a fall and tumble in the red mud as I was descend- 



LOST ON TABLE MOUNTAIN. 3I 

in the high hill that separated the two camps, about 
two o'clock in the morning I came in sight of the 
parsonage, and saw an anxious face at the door 
looking out into the darkness. 

After a sound sleep, I rose next day a little 
bruised and stiff, but otherwise none the worse for 
being lost on Table Mountain. The gallant gray 
pony did not escape so well; he never did get over 
his lameness.- 



FULTON. 

HE was a singular compound — hero, hypo- 
chondriac, and saint. 
He came aboard the "Antelope" as 
we (wife and I) were on our way to the 
Annual Conference at Sacramento in 1855. 
Coming into our stateroom, he introduced himself 
as ''Brother Fulton." A thin, pale-faced man, 
with weak blue eyes, and that peculiar look which 
belongs to the real ascetic, he seemed out of place 
among that motley throng. 

" I am glad to see 3'ou, and hope you will live 
holy and be useful in California" he said. "x\s 
this is the first time we have met," he continued, 
" let us have a word of prayer, that all our inter- 
course may be sanctified to our mutual good." 

Down he kneeled among the trunks, valises, and 
bandboxes' in the little stateroom (and we with 
him, though it was tight squeezing amid the bag- 
gage), and prayed long and fervently, with many 
groans and sighs. 

Rising at length from our knees, we entered into 
conversation. After a few inquiries and answers, 
he said: "It is very difticult to maintain a spirit- 
ual frame of mind among all these people. Let 
us have another word of prayer." 

Down he went again on his knees, we follow- 
ing, and he wrestled long and earnestly in suppli- 
cation, oblivious of the peculiarities of the situa- 
tion. 

Conversation was resumed on rising, confined 

(32) 



FULTON. 33 

exclusively to religious topics. A few minutes 
had thus been spent, when he said: '* We are on 
our way to the Annual Conference, where we 
shall be engaged in looking after the interests of 
the Church. Let us have another word of prayer, 
that we may be prepared for these duties, and 
that the session may be profitable to all." Again 
he knelt upon his knees and prayed with great 
fervor. 

When we rose there was a look of inquiry in 
the eyes of my fellow-missionary which seemed to 
ask : ' ' Where is this to end ? " 

Just then the dinner bell rang, and we had no 
opportunity for further devotions with Brother 
Fulton. 

It was observed during the Conference session 
that there was a cloud in Fulton's sky — he sat 
silent and gloomy, taking no part in the proceed- 
ings. About the third morning, while some im- 
portant measure was pending, he rose and ad- 
dressed Bishop Andrew, who was in the chair: 
*' Bishop, I am in great mental distress. You will 
excuse me for interrupting the business of the Con- 
ference, but I can bear it no longer." 

"What's the matter, Brother Fulton?" asked 
that bluff, wise old preacher. 

"I am afraid I have sinned," was the answer, 
with bowed head and faltering voice. 

" In what way? " asked the bishop. 

"I will explain: On my way from the moun- 
tains I became very hungry in the stagecoach. I 
am afraid I thought too much of m}^ food. You 
know. Bishop, that if we lix our affections for one 
moment on any creature more than on God, it is 
sin." 

''Well, Brother Fulton," said the bishop, ''if 
at your hungriest moment the alternative had been 
3 



34 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

presented whether you should give up your God 
or your dinner, would 3^ou have hesitated?" 

"No, sir," said Brother Fulton meekly, after a 
short pause. 

*' Well, then, ni}^ dear brother, the case is clear, 
you have done no wrong," said the bishop in his 
hearty, offhand way. 

The effect was magical. Fulton stood thought- 
ful a moment, and then, as he sat down, burst into 
tears of joy. Poor, morbidly sensitive soul ! we 
may smile at such scruples, so foreign to the tem- 
per of these after times, but they were the scruples 
of a soul as true and as unworldly as that of a 
Kempis. 

He was sent to the mines, and he was a wonder 
to those nomadic dwellers about Vallecito, Doug- 
lass's Flat, Murphy's Camp, and Lancha Plana. 
They were puzzled to determine whether he was 
a lunatic or a saint. Many stories of his eccen- 
tricities were afloat, and he was regarded with a 
sort of min^irled curiosity and awe. It was but 
seldom that even the roughest fellows would utter 
profane language in his presence, and when they 
did, they received a rebuke that made them 
ashamed. Before the year was out he had won 
every heart by the power of simple truthfulness, 
courage, and goodness. The man who insulted, 
or in any way mistreated him, would have lost 
caste with those wild adventurers who, with all 
their grievous faults, never failed to recognize 
sincerity and pluck. Fulton's sincerity was un- 
mistakable, and he feared not the face of man. 
He made converts among them, too. Many a 
profane lip became familiar with the language of 
prayer in those mining camps where the devil was 
so terribly regnant, and took no pains to hide his 
cloven foot. 



FULTON. 35 

One of Fulton's eccentricities caused a tedious 
trial to an old hen belonging to a good sister at 
Vallecito. He was a dyspeptic — too great abste- 
miousness the cause, llis diet was tea, crackers, 
and boiled eg^s. Being a rigid Sabbath keeper, 
he would eat nothing cooked on Sunday. So his 
eggs were boiled on Saturday, and warmed over 
for his Sunday meals. About the time of one of 
his visits to Vallecito, the sister referred to had oc- 
casion to set a hen. The period of incubation was 
singularly protracted, running far into the sum- 
mer. The eggs would not hatch. Investigation 
finally disclosed the fact that by somebody's 
blunder the boiled eggs had been placed under 
the unfortunate fowl, whose perseverance failed 
of its due reward. *' Bless me I " said the good- 
natured sister, laughing, ** these were Brother Ful- 
ton's eggs. I wonder if he ate the raw ones? " 

Fulton had his stated times for private devotion, 
and allowed nothing to stand in the way. The 
hour of twelve was one of these seasons sacred to 
prayer. One day he was ascending a mountain, 
leading his horse, and assisting a teamster by 
scotching the w^heels of his heavy wagon when his 
horses stopped to get breath. When about half- 
way up, Fulton's large, old-fashioned silver watch 
told him it was twelve. Instantly he called out: 
" My hour of prayer has arrived, and I must stop 
and pray." 

" Wait till we get to the top of the mountain, 
won't you?" exclaimed the teamster. 

" No," said Fulton, " I never allow anything to 
interfere with my secret pra3'ers." And down he 
kneeled by the roadside, bridle in hand, and v/ith 
closed eyes he was soon wrapped in devotion. 

The teamster expressed his view of the situation 
in language not exactly congruous to the exercise 



36 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in which his fellow-traveler was engaged. But he 
waited until the prayer was ended, and then with 
a serene face Fulton resumed his service as 
scotcher, and the summit was reached in triumph. 

While on the San Ramon Circuit, in Contra 
Costa County, he met a man with a drove of hogs 
in a narrow, muddy lane. The swdne took fright, 
and, despite the frantic efforts of their driver, they 
turned, bolted by him, and rushed back the way 
w^hence they had come. The swineherd was 
furious with rage, and let loose upon Fulton a vol- 
ley of oaths and threats. Fulton paused, looked 
upon the angry fellow calmly for a few^ moments, 
and then dismounted, and, kneeling by the road- 
side, began to pray for the man whose profanity 
was filling the air. The fellow was confounded at 
the sight of that ghostly-looking man on his knees 
before him ; he took a panic, and, turning back, he 
followed his hogs in rapid flight. The sequel must 
be given. The fleeing swineherd became one of 
Fulton's converts, dating his religious concern 
from the pra3^er in the lane. 

Fulton itinerated in this w^ay for years, fasting 
rigidly and praying incessant^, some thinking him 
a lunatic, others reverencing him as a saint. 
Thinner and thinner did he grow, his palhd face 
becoming almost transparent. Thinking its mild 
climate might benefit his health, he was sent to 
Southern California. One morning on entering 
his room, he was found kneeling by his bedside 
dead, with his Bible open before him, and a smile 
on his face. 



THE FATAL TWIST. 



A 



LCOHOL and opium were his masters. 
He alternated in their use. Only a hrain 
of extraordinary strength, and nerves of 
steel, could have stood the strain. He 
had a large practice at the Sonora bar, was a pop- 
ular politician, made telling stump speeches, and 
wrote pungent and witty editorials for the Union 
Democrat^ conducted by that most genial and un- 
selfish of party pack horses, A. N. Francisco. He 
was a fine scholar, and so thoroughly a gentleman 
in his instincts that even when drunk he was not 
vulgar or obscene. Cynicism and waggery were 
mingled in his nature, but he was more cynic than 
wag. An accidental meeting under pleasant cir- 
cumstances, and agreement in opinion concerning 
certain current issues that were excitinij the coun- 
try, developed a sort of friendship between us. 
He affected skepticism, and was always ready to 
give a thrust at the clergy. It sometimes happened 
that a party of the wild blades of the place would 
come in a body to my Httle church on the hillside, 
to hear such a discourse as my immaturity could 
furnish, but he was never among them. All he 
seemed to want from the community in which he 
lived was something to sneer or laugh at, and the 
means wherewith to procure the narcotics with 
which he was destroying his body and brain. As 
we met oftener I became interested in him more 
and more. Looking at his splendid head and 
handscwne face, it was impossible not to admire 

(37) 



38 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

him and think of the possibiHties of his Hfe could 
he be freed from his vices. He was still under 
thirty. But he was a drunkard. 

He was shy of all allusions to himself, and I do 
not know how it was that he came to open his 
mind to me so freely as he did one morning. 1 
found him alone in his office. He was sober and 
sad, and in a different mood from any in which I 
had ever before met him. Our conversation 
touched upon many topics, for he seemed disposed 
to talk. 

'* How slight a circumstance," I remarked, 
" will sometimes give coloring to our w^hole char- 
acter, and affect all our after life.'" 

" Yes," he answered, " bitterly do I realize the 
truth of your remark. When I was in my four- 
teenth year an incident occurred which has influ- 
enced all my subsequent life. I was always a 
favorite wdth mv school-teachers, and I loved them 
with a hearty bo3ash affection. Especially did I 
entertain a most affectionate reverence for the 
kind old man who presided over the boys' acad- 
emy in my native town in Massachusetts. He be- 
came my instructor when I was ten years old, and 
I was his favorite pupil. With a natural aptness 
for study, m}^ desire to win his approbation stimu- 
lated me to make exertions that always kept me at 
the head of my class, and I was frequently held up 
to the other pupils as an example of good behavior. 
I was proud of his good opinion, and sought to 
deserve it. Stimulated both by ambition and af- 
fection, nothing seemed too difficult for me. The 
three years I was under his tuition were the best 
employed and happiest of my life. But my kind 
old preceptor died. The whole town was plunged 
in sorrow for his loss, and my boyish grief was 
bitter." 



THE FATAL TW 1ST. 



39 



Here he paused a few moments, and then went 
on: "Soon a new teacher took his place. He 
was unhke the one we had lost. He was a young- 
er man, and he lacked the gentleness and dignity 
of his predecessor. But 1 was prepared to give 
him my confidence and affection, for then I had 
learned nothing else. I sought to gain his favor, 
and was diligent in study and careful of my 
behavior. For several days all w^ent on smoothly. 
A rule of the school forbade whispering. One 
day a boy sitting just behind me whispered my 
name. Involuntarily I half inclined my head to- 
ward him, w^hen the new teacher called to me 
angrily: ' Come here, sir! ' I obeyed. -Grasping 
me tightly by the collar, he said : ' How dare you 
whisper in school?' I told him I had not w^his- 
pered. ' Hearing my name called, I only turned 
to ' — ' Don't dare to tell me a lie ! ' he thundered, 
lifting me from the floor as he spoke, and tripping 
my feet from under me, causing me to fall vio- 
lently, my head striking first. I w^as stunned by 
the fall, but soon rose to my feet, bruised and be- 
wildered, yet burning with indignation. 'Take 
your seat, sir!' said he, enforcing the command 
by several sharp strokes of the rod ; * and be care- 
ful in future how you lie to me ! ' I w^alked 
slowly to my seat. A demon had entered my soul. 
For the first time I had learned to hate. I hated 
that man from that hour, and I hate him still ! He 
still lives; and if I ever meet him, I will be even 
with him yet! 

He had unconsciously risen from his seat, while 
his eyes flashed, and his face was distorted with 
passion. After a few moments he continued: 
" This affair produced a complete change in my 
conduct and character. I hated my teacher. I 
looked upon him as an enemy, and treated him 



40 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

accordingly. Losing all relish for study, from 
being at the head I dropped to the foot of my class. 
Instead of seeking to merit a name for good behav- 
ior, my only ambition was to annoy the tyrant 
placed over me. He treated me harshly, and I suf- 
fered severely. He beat me constantly and cruel- 
ly. Under these influences m^^ nature hardened 
rapidl}^ I receiv^ed no svmpathy except from my 
mother, and she did not understand my position. 
I felt that she loved me, though she evidently 
thought I must be in the wrong. My father laid 
all the blame on me, and, with a stern sense of 
justice, refused to interfere in my behalf. At last 
I began to look upon him as an accomplice of my 
persecutor, and almost hated him too. I became 
suspicious and misanthropic. I loved no one but 
m}^ mother, and sought the love of no other. 
Thus passed several years. My time was wasted, 
and m}' nature perverted. I was sent to college, 
for which I was poorly prepared. Here a new 
life began. My effort to rise above the influences 
that had been so hurtful to me failed. My college 
career soon terminated. I could not shake off 
the effects of the early injustice and mismanage- 
ment of which I was the victim. I came to Cali- 
fornia in a reckless spirit, and am. now mortgaged 
to the devil. What I might have been under 
other circumstances, I know not; but I do know 
that the best elements of my nature were crushed 
out of me by the infernal t3'rant who was my 
teacher, and that I owe him a debt I would be glad 
to pay. 

He spoke truly. The mortgage was duly fore- 
closed. He died of delirium tremens. A single 
act of injustice sowed the seeds of bitterness that 
marred the hopes of a whole life. The moral of 
this sketch is commended to teachers and parents. 



STRANDED. 

JUST as the sun was going down, after one 
of the hottest days of the summer of 1855, 
while we were sitting in the rude piazza of 
the parsonage in Sonora, enjoying the cool- 
ness of the evening breeze, a man came up, and 
in a hurried tone inquired: "Does the preacher 
live here? " 

Getting an affirmative answer, he said: *^ There 
is a very sick man at the hospital who wishes to see 
the Southern Methodist preacher immediately." 

I at once obeyed the summons. On reaching 
the hospital my conductor said, '• You will tind 
him in there," pointing to one of the rooms. 

On entering, I found four patients in the room, 
three of whom were young men, variously affect- 
ed with chronic diseases — rough-looking fellows, 
showing plainly in their sensual faces the insignia 
of vice. The fourth was a man perhaps tifty 
years old. As he lay there in the light of the set- 
ting sun, I thought I had never beheld a more 
ghastly object. The deathlike pallor, the pinched 
features, the unnatural gleam of his eyes in their 
sunken sockets, telling of days of pain and nights 
without sleep — all told me this was the man by 
whom I had been sent for. 

"Are you the preacher?" he asked in a feeble 
voice, as I approached the bedside. 

"Yes; I am the preacher. Can I do anything 
for 3^ou ? ' ' 

" I am glad you have come — I was afraid I 
would not get to see you. Take a seat on that 
stool — the accommodations are rather poor here." 

(41) 



4^ CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

He paused to recover breath, and then went on: 
" I want you to pray for me. I was once a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Church, in Georgia; but O 
sir, I have been a bad man in CaHfornia — a wick- 
ed, wicked wretch! I have a family in Georgia, 
a dear wife and " — 

Here he broke down again. 

*' I had hoped to see them once more, but the 
doctors say I must die, and I feel that I am sink- 
ing. No tongue could tell what I have suffered, 
but the worst of all is my shameful denial of my 
Saviour. What a fool I have been, to think that 
I could prosper in sin! Here I am., stranded, 
wrecked, by my own folly. I have been here in 
the hospital two months, and have suffered intensely 
all the time. What a fool I have been I Will you 
pray for me ? " 

After directing his attention to various passages 
of the Bible expressive of the tender love of God 
toward the erring, I knell by his cot and prayed. 
His sighs and sobs gave indication of deep feeling, 
and when I arose from my knees the tears were 
running from his eyes. *' Return unto me, and I 
will return unto you," he said, repeating the 
words which I had quoted from the word of God 
— "return unto me, and I will return unto you" 
— lingering upon the words with peculiar satisfac- 
tion. He seemed to have caught a great truth. 

I continued my visits to him for several weeks. 
He gave me the history of his life, which had been 
one of vicissitude and adventure. He had been a 
soldier in the Seminole war in Florida, and he had 
much to say of alligators and Indians and Andrew 
Jackson. All the time his strength was faihng, 
his eyes glittering more intensely. His bodily suf- 
ferings were frightful; the onlv sleep he obtained 
was by the use of opiates. But an extraordinary 



Stranded. 43 

change had taken place in liis mental state. To 
say that he was happy would be putting it too 
tamely. There was some unseen Presence or 
Power that lifted his soul above his suffering body, 
making that lonely room all bright and peaceful. 
What it was, no true believer in the Saviour and 
lover of our souls will doubt. 

" There's a great change in the old man," said 
the nurse one day; '* he doesn't fret at all now." 

" O I have been so happy all night and all 
day I " he said to me the last time that I saw him. 
** I have only refrained from shouting for fear of 
disturbing these poor fellows, my sick roommates. 
1 have felt all day as if I could take them all in 
my arms, and fly with them to tne skies! " And 
his face was radiant. 

The next morning he was found on the floor by 
his bedside — dead. He had died so quietly that 
none knew it. His papers were placed in my pos- 
session. In his well-worn pocketbook, among let- 
ters from his wife in Georgia, receipts, and private 
papers of various kinds, I found the following 
lines, which he had clipped from some newspaper, 
and which seemed tear blotted: 

COME HOME, PAPA! 

A little girVs thoughts about her absent papa. 

Come home, papa! the ashes of ni^ht 

Are gathering in the sky; 
The firefly shines with a fitful Hghl, 

The stars are out on high, 
And twinkles hright the evening star: 
We have waited long — come home, papa! 

Come home! the hirds have gone to rest 

In many a forest tree; 
Within thy quiet home, thv nest. 

Thy bird is waiting thee; 
She softly sings, to cheer mamma, 
The while she waits come home, papa! 



44 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Come home! a tear is glistening bright 
Within m\- mother's eye; 

Why stay away so late to-night 
From home, mamma, and 1? 

"Alas! " " alas! " her moanings are 

That thou canst not return, papa! 

She says the white-sailed ship hath borne 

Thee far upon the sea, 
That many a night and many a morn 

Will pass nor bring us thee; 
But bear thee from us swift and far. 
And thou mayst not come home, papa! 

I thought thou wouldst return when light 

Had faded on the sea: 
How can I fall asleep to-night 

Without a kiss from thee? 
Thy picture in my hand I hold, 
But O the lips are hard and cold ! 

Come home! I'm sad where'er I go, 

To find no father there: 
How can we live without thee so? 

Fll say my evening praver. 
And ask the God who made each star, 
To bring me home my dear papa! 

ANSWERED. 

ril come! Pll come! my darling one, 
Though long from thee I've tarried. 

For thee within my anxious breast 
The fondest love I've carried 

Where'er I'\e roamed o'er land or sea. 

Be not dismayed, Fll come to thee. 

When evening shades around thee fall, 
And birds have gone to rest, 

O sing, thou sweetest bird of mine, 
Within thy lonely nest! 

Sing on! sing on! to cheer " mamma" 

" The while she waits " for th\- " papa." 

O tell thy mother not to weep, 

But let her tears be dry. 
And ne'er for me to let them creep 

Into her cheerful eye; 
For though I've strayed from her afar, 
She soon shall welcome home "papa." 



STRANDED. 45 

Though " white-sailed ship " hath borne me far 

Across the restless sea; 
Though manv nights and morns have passed 

Since last I dwelt with thee, 
Yet, loved one, I tell thee true, 
But death can sever me from you. 

O lay that picture down, sweet child, 

And calmly rest in sleep, 
And for my absence long from thee 

1 pray thee not to weep! 
I'll come! Til come again to thee. 
In '' white-sailed ship " across the sea. 

But no "white-sailed ship" ever bore him to 
the loved ones across the sea. He sleeps on one 
of the red hills overlooking Sonora, awaiting the 
resurrection. 

As these are not fancy sketches, but simple re- 
citals of actual California life, the lines above were 
copied as found. The friendly reader therefore 
will not judge them with critical severity. 



LOCKLEY. 

HE was eccentric, and he was lazy — very 
eccentric, and very lazy. The miners 
crowded his church on Sundays, and he 
moved around among them in a leisure- 
ly famiHar way during the week, saying the 
quaintest things, eating their slapjacks, and smok- 
ing their best cigars. He occupied a little frame 
house near the church in Columbia, then the rich- 
est minmg camp in the world, in whose streets ten 
thousand miners lounged, ate, drank, gambled, 
quarreled, and fought every Lord's day. That 
bachelor parsonage was unic^ue in respect of the 
furniture it did not contain, and also in respect to 
the condition of that which it did contain. Lock- 
ley was not a neat housekeeper. I have said he 
was lazy. He knew the fact, accepted it, and 
gloried in it. On one occasion he invited four 
friends to supper. They all arrived at the hour. 
Lockley was stretched at full length on a lounge 
which would have been better for the attention of 
an upholsterer or washerwoman. The friends 
looked at each other, and at their host. One of 
them spoke: " Lockley, where' s your supper? " 

"O, it isn't cooked yet," he drawled out. 
''Parker," continued Lockley, make a fire in 
that stove. Toman, you go up town and get some 
crackers and oysters and coffee and a steak. 
Oxle3s go after a bucket of water. Porterfield, 
you hunt up the crockery and set the table." 
His orders were obeyed by the amused guests, 
(46) 



LOCK LEY. 47 

v/ho entered into the spirit of the occasion with 
great good humor. Oyster cans were opened, the 
steak was duly sHced, seasoned, and broiled, the 
coffee was boiled, and in due time the supper was 
ready, and Lockley arose from the lounge and pre- 
sided at the table with perfect enjoyment. 

Two of these guests had a tragic history. Ox- 
ley and Parker were killed in Mexico, at the mas- 
sacre of the Crabb party. Portertield died in 
Stockton. Toman, I think, lives somewhere in 
Indiana. 

I saw one of Lockley' s letters from Los Ange- 
les, wdiither he had been sent by Bishop Andrew, 
in 1855. It w^as as follows: 

Los Angeles, August, 1855. 

Dear Portcrfield: I have been here six months. There are 
three Protestant Churches in the place. Their united congre- 
gations amount to ten persons. ^Ij receipts from collections 
during six months amount to ten dollars. I have been study- 
ing a great scientiiic question— namely, the location of the seat 
of hunger. Is it in the stomach, or in the brain.-* After con- 
sulting all the best authorities, and no little exferienee, I have 
concluded that it is migratory — first in one, and then in the 
other! Take care of my cats. Lockley. 

I had a letter from him once. It w^as in reply 
to one from me asking him to remit the amount of 
a bill he owed for books. As it was brief, I print 
it entire: 

Mariposa, April, 1858. 
Dear Fitz: Your dunning letter has been received and — 
placed on file. Yours, E. B. Lockley. 

The first time I ever heard him preach was at 
San Jose, during a special meeting. Poising him- 
self in his peculiar way, with an expression half 
comic, half serious, he began: *'I have a notion, 
my friends, that in a gospel land every man has 
his own preacher — that is, for every man there is 



48 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

some one preacher, who, from similarity of tem- 
perament and mental constitution, is adapted to 
be the instrument of his salvation. Now," he 
continued, " there may be some man in this audi- 
ence so peculiar, so cranky, so much out of the 
common order, that I imi his man. If so, may 
the Holy Spirit send the truth to his heart!" 
This remark riveted attention, and he held it to 
the close. 

Lazy as he was out of the pulpit, in it he was all 
energy and fire. He had read largely, had a good 
memory, and put the quaintest conceits into the 
quaintest setting of fitting words. His favorite 
text was: ''There remaineth a rest to the people 
of God." That was his idea of heaven — rest, to 
" sit down" with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in 

the kinodom of God. On this theme he was in- 



deed eloquent. The rapturous songs, the waving 
palms, the sounding harps of the New Jerusalem 
were not to his taste; what he wanted, and looked 
for, was rest, and all the images by which he de- 
scribed the felicity of the redeemed were drawn 
from that one thought. His idea of hell was an- 
tithetic to this. The terrible thought with him 
was that there was no rest there. I heard him 
bring out this idea with awful power one Sunday 
morning at Linden, in San Joaquin County. '* In 
this w^orld," said Lockley, " there is respite from 
every grief, every burden, every pain in the body. 
The mourner weeps herself to sleep. The agony 
of pain sinks exhausted into slumber. Sleep, 
sweet sleep, brings surcease to all human griefs 
and pains in this life. But there zvill he no sleep 
in hell! The accusing conscience will hiss its re- 
proaches into the ear of the lost, the memory will 
reproduce the crimes and follies by which the soul 
was wrecked forever, the fires of retribution will 



LOCK LEY. 



49 



burn on unintermittingly. One hour of sleep in a 
thousand years would be some mitigation ; but the 
worm dieth not, the lire is not quenched. God 
deliver me from a sleepless hell! " he exclaimed, 
his swarthy face glowing, and his dark eyes 
gleaming, his whole frame quivering with horror 
at the thought his mind had conceived. 

He was original in the pulpit, as everywhere 
else. At one time tne preachers of the Pacitic 
Conference seemed to have a sort of epidemic of 
preaching on a certain topic; "The Choice of 
Moses." The elders preached it at the quarterly 
meetings, and it was carried around from circuit 
to circuit and from station to station. There was 
not much variety in these sermons. They all bore 
a generic likeness to each other, indicating a com- 
mon paternit}^ at least for the outlines. The 
matter had become a subject of pleasant banter 
among the brethren. There was consequently 
some surprise when, at the session of the Annual 
Conference, Lockley announced for his text: 
" Moses chose rather to suffer affliction with the 
people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin 
for a season." It was the old text, but it was a 
new sermon. The choice of Moses was, in his 
hands, a topic fresh and entertaining, as he threw 
upon it the flashes of his wit, and evoked from it 
suggestions that never would have occurred to 
another mind. '* Mind you," he said at point, 
" Moses chose to suffer affliction u^ilh the people 
of God. I tell you, my brethren, the people of 
God are sometimes very aggravating. They fret- 
ted Moses almost to death. But did he forsake 
them? Did he leave them in the wilderness to 
perish in their foolishness? No; he stood by 
them to the last." His application of this peculiar 
exegesis to the audience of preachers and Church 
4 



^O CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

members was so pointed that the ripple of amuse- 
ment that swept over their faces gave way to an 
expression that told that the shot had hit the mark. 

One warm day in 1858 he started out with me 
to make a canvass of the city of Stockton for the 
Church paper. We kept in pretty brisk motion 
for an hour or two, Lockley giving an occasional 
sign of dissatisfaction at the unwonted activity into 
which he had been beguiled. Passing down 
Weber Avenue, on the shady side of a corner store 
he saw an empty chair, and with a sigh of relief 
he sunk into it. 

" Come on, Lockle3^" said I; '* we are not half 
done our work." 

" I shan't do it," he drawled. 

*' Why not?" I asked. 

'*The Scripture is against it," he answered 
with great seriousness of tone. 

" How is that," I asked with curiosity. 

*' The Scripture says, 'Do thyself no harm,'" 
said he, '* and it does me harm to walk as fast as 
you do. I shan't budge." 

Nor did he. I spent two or three hours in dif- 
ferent parts of the city, and on ni}- return found 
him sitting in exactly the same attitude in which 
I had left him, a picture of perfect contentment. 
Literally he had not budged. 

While on the Santa Clara Circuit he drove a 
remarkable little sorrel mare named by him Ginsy. 
Ginsy was very small, very angular, with long fet- 
locks and mane a shade lighter than her other 
parts, a short tail that had a comic sort of twist to 
one side, and a lame eye. The buggy was in 
keeping with Gins3^ It was battered and splin- 
tered, some of the spokes were new and some were 
old, the dashboard was a wreck, the wheels see- 
sawed in a curious way as it moved. And the 



LOCKLEY. 51 

harness I — it was too much for my descriptive pow- 
ers. It was a conglomerate harness, composed of 
leather, hay rope, fragments of suspenders, whip 
cord, and rawhide. The vehicle announced its 
approach by an extraordinary creaking of all its 
unoiled axles, a sort of calliopean quartet that re- 
galed the ears of the fat and happy genius who 
held the reins. Lockley, Gins}^ and that buggy 
made a picture worth looking at. 

While Lockley was on this circuit the. Annual 
Conference was held at San Jose. As Bishop 
Kavanaugh was to preach on Sunday morning, it 
was expected that an overwhelming congregation 
would crowd the San Jose church, that eloquent 
Kentuckian being a favorite with all classes in 
California. Lockley asked that a preacher be 
sent to fill the pulpit of his Httle church in the 
town of Santa Clara, three miles distant. The 
genial and zealous James Kelsay was sent. At 
eleven o'clock he and Lockley entered the church, 
and ascended the pulpit. After kneeling a few 
moment in the usual way, they seated themselves 
and faced the — not the audience, for none was 
there. Nobody had come. In a few minutes an 
old man came in and took a seat in the farthest 
corner from the pulj-jit. He eyed the two preach- 
ers, and they eyed him in silence. The minutes 
passed on. There they sat. As might have been 
expected, everybody had gone to hear the bishop, 
in San Jose. That old man was the only person 
who entered the church. It was evident, how- 
ever, that he had come to stay. He rigidly kept 
his place, never taking his eyes from the two 
preachers, who repaid him with an attention 
equalh^ fixed. A pin might have been heard to 
drop — not a sound was uttered as they thus sat 
and gazed at each other. An hour passed, and 



52 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

still they sat speechless'^ Lockley broke the silence. 
Turning to his companion in the pulpit, he said 
gravely : ''^Brother Kelsay, how shall we bring these 
solemn services to a closef'' 

" Let us pray," said Kelsay. 

They knelt, and Kelsay led in prayer, the 
old man keeping his place and sitting position. 
The benediction was then formally pronounced, 
and that service ended. 

His death was tragic and pitiful. A boy, stand- 
ing in the sunken channel of a dry creek, shot at 
a vicious dog on the bank above. The bullet, 
after striking and killing the dog, struck Lockley 
in the chest as he was approaching the spot. He 
staggered backward to a fence close at hand, fell 
on his knees, and died praying. 



AN INTERVIEW. 



AS I was coming out of the San Francisco 
post office one morning in the year 1859, 
a tall, dark-skinned man placed himself 
in front of me, and, fixing his intensely 
ghttering eyes upon me, said in an excited tone: 
'- Sir, can you give me a half- hour of your time 
this morning? " 

"Yes," I replied, "if I can be of any service 
to you by so doing." 

"Not here, but in your office, privately," he 
contmued. "I must speak to somebody, and 
having heard you preach in the church on Pine 
Street, I felt that I could approach you. I am in 
great trouble and danger, and must speak to some 

one ! 

His manner was excited, his hand trembled, and 
his eye had an insane gleam as he spoke. We 
walked on in silence until we reached my office 
on Montgomery Street. After entering, I laid 
down my letters and papers, and was about to 
offer him a chair, when he hurriedly locked the 
door on the inside, saying as he did so: "This 
conversation is to be private, and I do not intend 
to be interrupted." 

As he turned toward me I saw that he had a 
pistol in his hand, which he laid on the desk, and 
then sat down. I waited for him to speak, eying 
him and the pistol closely, and feeling a Httle un- 
comfortable, locked in thus with an armed mad- 
man of almost giantlike size and strength. The 
pistol had a sinister look that I had never before 

(53) 



54 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

recognized in that popular weapon. It seemed to 
grow bigger and bigger. 

" Have you ever been haunted by the idea of 
suicide? " he asked abruptly, his eyes glaring upon 
me as he spoke. 

" No, not particularly," I answered; '' but w^hy 
do you ask? " 

" Because the idea is haunting me^'' he said in 
an agitated tone, rising from his chair as he spoke. 
" I have lain for two nights with a cocked pistol 
in my hand, calculating the value of my life. I 
bought that pistol to shoot myself with, and I won- 
der that I have not done it; but something has 
held me back." 

"What has put the idea of suicide into your 
mind? " I inquired. 

"My life's a failure, sir; and there is nothing 
else left for such a fool as I have been," he said 
bitterl3^ "When a man has no hope left, he 
should die." 

I was making some reply, when he broke in, 
" Hear my history, and then tell me if death is 
not the only thing left for me," laying his hand 
upon the pistol as he spoke. 

When he told me his name I recognized it as 
that of a man of genius, whose contributions 
to a certain popular periodical had given him 
a wide fame in the world of letters. He was the 
son of a venerable New England bishop, and a 
graduate of Harvard University. I will give his 
story in his own words, as nearl}^ as I can: " In 
1850 I started to California with honorable pur- 
pose and high ambition. M}^ father being a clergy- 
man, and poor, and greatly advanced in years, I 
felt that it was my duty to make some provision for 
him and for the family circle to which I belonged, 
and of which I was the idol. Animated by this 




//</:- \i'i< < :< I hrrit ItaiDitrd z.il/i t lir idrn <>/' sniciilr .' 

(55) 



AN INTERVIEW. 57 

purpose, I was full of hope and energy. On the 
ship that took me to California 1 made the ac- 
quaintance and fell into the snares of a beautiful 
but unprincipled woman, for whom I toiled and 
sacrificed everything for eight years of weakness 
and folly, never remitting a dollar to those I had 
intended to provide for at home, carrying all the 
while an uneasy conscience and despising myself. 
I made immense sums of money, but it all went 
for nothing but to feed the extravagance and reck- 
lessness of my evil genius. Tortured by remorse, 
I made many struggles to free myself from the evil 
connection that blighted my life, but in vain. I 
had almost ceased to struggle against my fate, 
when death lifted the shadow from my path. The 
unhappy woman died, and I w^as free. I was as- 
tonished to find how rapid and how^ complete was 
the reaction from my despair. I felt like a new 
man. The glowing hopes that had been smothered 
revived, and I felt something of the buoyancy and 
energy with which I had left my New England 
hills. I worked hard, and prospered. I made 
money, and saved it, making occasional remit- 
tances to the family at home, who were overjoyed 
to hear from me after my long and guilty silence. 
I hadn't the heart to w^-ite to them while pursuing 
my evil life. I had learned to gamble, of course, 
but now I resolved to quit it. For two years I 
kept this resolution, and had in the meantime 
saved over six thousand dollars. Do you believe 
that the devil tempts men? I tell you, sir, it is 
true ! I began to feel a strange desire to visit 
some of my old haunts. This feeling became in- 
tense, overmastering. My judgment and con- 
science protested, but I felt like one under a spell. 
I yielded, and found my way to a well-known 
gambling hell, where I lost every dollar of my 



58 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

hard-earned money. It was like a dream — I 
seemed to be drawn on to my ruin by some invisi- 
ble but resistless evil power. When I had lost all 
a strange calm came over me, which I have never 
understood. It may have been the reaction, after 
nights of feverish excitement, or possibly it was 
the unnatural calm that follows the death of hope. 
My self-contempt was complete. No language 
could have expressed the intensity of my self- 
scorn. I sneaked to my lodgings, feeling that I 
had somehow parted with my manhood as well as 
my money. The very next day I was surprised by 
the offer of a lucrative subordinate position in a 
federal office in San Francisco. This was not 
the first coincidence of the sort in my life, where 
an unexpected influence had been brought to bear 
upon me, giving my plans and prospects a new di- 
rection. Has God anything to do with these 
things? or is it accident? I took the place which 
was offered to me, and went to work with renewed 
hope and energy. I made a vow against gam- 
bling, and determined to recover all I had thrown 
away. I saved every dollar possible, pinching 
myself in my living and supplementing my liberal 
salary by literary labors. My savings had again 
run high up in the thousands, and my gains were 
steady. The Frazer River mining excitement 
broke out. An old friend of mine came to me 
and asked the loan of a hundred dollars to help 
him off to the new mines. I told him he should 
have the money, and that I would have it ready 
for him that afternoon. After he had left, the 
thought occurred to me that one hundred dollars 
was a very poor outfit for such an enterprise, and 
that he ought to have more. Then the thought 
was suggested — yes, sir, it was suggxsted — that I 
might take the hundred dollars to a faro bank and 



AN INTERVIEW. 59 

win another hundred to place in the hands of my 
friend. I was fully resolved to risk not a cent be- 
yond this. The idea took possession of my mind, 
and when he came for the money I told him my 
plan, and proposed that he accompany me to the 
gambling hell. He was a free-and-easy sort of 
fellow, and readily assented. We went together, 
and after alternate successes and losses at the faro 
bank, it ended in the usual way: I lost the hundred 
dollars. I went home in a frenzy of anger and 
self-reproach. The old passion was roused again. 
A wild determination to break the faro bank took 
hold of me. I went night after night, betting 
recklessly until not a dollar was left. This hap- 
pened last week. Can you wonder that I have 
concluded there is no hope for as weak a fool as 
lam?" 

He paused a moment in his rapid recital, pacing 
the floor with his hand on the hammer of the pis- 
tol, which he had taken up. 

" Now, sir, candidly, don't you think that the 
best thing I can do is to blow out my brains?" 
said he, cocking the pistol as he spoke. 

The thouoht occurred to me that it was no un- 
common thing for the suicidal to give way to the 
homicidal mania. The man was evidently half 
mad, and ready for a tragedy. That pistol seemed 
almost instinct with conscious evil intention. If a 
suicide or a homicide was to end the scene, I pre- 
ferred the former. " How old are you?" I asked, 
aiming to create a diversion. 

*' I am forty-five," he answered, apparently 
brought to a little more recollection of himself by 
the question. 

*'I should think," I continued, having arrested 
his attention, " that whatever may have been 3^our 
follies, and however dark the future you have to 



6o CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

face, you have too much manhood to sneak out of 
life by the back door of suicide/' 

The shot struck. An instantaneous change 
passed over his countenance. Suicide appeared to 
him in a new Hght — as a cowardly, not a heroic 
act. He had been fascinated with the notion of 
having the curtain fall upon his career amid the 
blaze of blue lights and the glamour of romance 
and the dignity of tragedy, with the wonder of the 
crowd and the tears of the sentimental. That was 
all gone — the suicide was but a poor creature, 
weak as well as wicked. He was saved. He 
sunk into a chair as he handed me the pistol, which 
I was very glad indeed to get into my hands. 

*' You should be ashamed of 3^ourself, sir," I 
continued. "You are only forty-five years old; 
you are in perfect health, with almost a giant's 
strength, a classical education, extensive business 
experience, and a knowledge of the world gained 
by your very mistakes that should be a guarantee 
against the possibility of their repetition. A brave 
man should never give up the battle ; the bravest 
men never give up. 

^' Give me the pistol," he said quietly; "you 
need not be afraid to trust me with it. The devil 
has left me. I will not act the part of a coward. 
You will hear from me again. Perm.it me to 
thank you. Good morning." 

I did hear from him again. The devil seemed 
indeed to have left him. He went to British Co- 
lumbia, where he prospered in business and got 
rich, became a pillar in the Church of which his 
father was one of the great lights, and committed 
not suicide, but matrimony, marrying a sweet and 
cultured English girl, who thinks her tall yankee 
husband the handsomest and noblest of men. 



FATHER COX. 



F 



1 ATHER COX was a physical and intellect- 
ual phenomenon. He was of immense 
girth, weighing more than three hundred 
pounds. His face was ruddy, and almost 
as smooth as that of a child, his hair snow- 
white and fine as floss silk, his eyes a deep blue, 
his features small. His great size, and the con- 
trast between the infantile freshness of his skin 
and white hair, made him a notable man in the 
largest crowd. 

He was converted and joined the Methodist 
Church, after he had passed his fiftieth year. He 
had been, as he himself phrased it, the keeper of 
a *' doggery," and was, no doubt, a rough cus- 
tomer. Reaching California by wa}^ of Texas, he 
at once began to preach. His st3de took with the 
CalifornianS; great crowds flocked to hear him, 
and marvelous effects were produced. He was a 
fine judge of human nature, and knew the direct 
way to the popular heart. Under his preaching 
men wept, prayed, repented, believed, and flocked 
into the Church by scores and hundreds. 

Father Cox was in his glory at a camp meeting. 
To his gift of exhortation was added that of song. 
He had a voice like a flute in its softness and 
purity of tone, and his solos before and after 
preaching melted and broke the hard heart of 
many a wild and reckless Calif ornian. 

His sagacity and knowledge of human nature 
were exhibited at one of his camp meetings held 
at Gilroy, in Santa Clara County. There was a 

(61) 



62 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

great crowd and a great religious excitement, Fa- 
ther Cox riding its topmost wave, the general of 
the army of Israel. Seated in the preachers' 
stand, he was leading in one of the spirited lyrics 
suited to the occasion, w^hen a young man ap- 
proached him and said: " Father Cox, there's a 
friend of mine out here who wants you to come 
and pra}^ for him." 

'' Where is he?" 

" Just out there on the edge of the crowed," an- 
swered the young fellow. 

Father Cox followed him to the outskirts of the 
congregation, where he found a group of rough- 
looking fellows standing around, with their leg- 
gings and huge Spanish spurs, in the center of 
w^hich a man was seen kneeling, with his face 
buried between his hands. 

*' There he is," said the guide. 

*' Is he a friend of yours, gentlemen?" asked 
Father Cox, turning to the expectant group. 

'* Yes," answered one of them. 

*'And you want me to pray for him, do you? " 
he continued. 

" We do," was the answer. 

*'A11 right; all of you kneel down, and I'll pray 
for him." 

They looked at one another in confusion, and 
then one by one they sheepishly kneeled until all 
were down. 

Father Cox kneeled down by the ** mourner," 
and prayed as follows: "O Lord, thou knowest 
all things. Thou knowest whether this man is a 
sincere penitent or not. If he is sincere!}^ sorry 
for his sins, and is bowing before thee with a 
broken heart and a contrite spirit, have mercy 
upon him, hear his prayer, pardon his transgres- 
sions, give him thy peace, and make him thy 



FATIIICR COX. 



63 



child. But, O Lord, if he is not in earnest, if he 
is here as an emissary of Satan, to make mock- 
ery of sacred things, and to hinder thy work, kill 
him — kill him. Lord "' — 

At this point the ''mourner" became fright- 
ened, and began to crawl. Father Cox following 
him on his knees, and continuing his prayer. The 
terror-stricken sinner could stand it no longer, but 
spran<T to his feet and bounded away at fuU speed, 
leaving Father Cox master of the field, while the 
kneelin^^- roughs rose and sneaked off abashed and 
discomfited. 

The sequel of this incident should be given. 
The mock penitent was taken into the Church by 
Father Cox soon after. He left the camp ground 
in a state of great alarm on account of his sacri- 
legious frolic. 

"When the old man put his hand on me as I 
kneeled there in wicked sport, and prayed as he 
did, it seemed to me that I felt hot flashes from 
hell rise in my face," said he; '* right there I be- 
came a true penitent." 

The man thus strangely converted became a 
faithful soldier of the cross. 

At a camp meeting near the town of Sonoma, 
in 1858, Father Cox, who was preacher in charge 
of that circuit, rose to exhort after the venerable 
Judge Shattuck had preached one of his strong, 
earnest sermons. The meeting had been going 
on several days, and the Sonoma sinners had hith- 
erto resisted all appeals and persuasions. The 
crowd was great, and every eye was fixed upon 
the old man as he began his exhortation. 

" Boys," he began, in a familiar, kindly way, 
"boys, you are treating me badly. I have been 
with you all the year, and you have always had a 
kind word and a generous hand for the old man. 



64 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

I love you, and I love your immortal souls. I 
have entreated you to turn away from your sins, 
to repent, and come to Christ and be saved. I 
have preached to you, I have prayed for you, I 
have wept over you. You harden your hearts, 
and stiffen your necks, and will not yield. You 
zuillhQ lost I You will go to hell I In the judg- 
ment day you will be left without excuse. And, 
boys,*' he continued, his mighty chest heaving, 
his voice quivering, and the tears running down 
his cheeks, " boys, 1 will have to be a witness 
against you. I shall have to testify that I warned, 
persuaded, and entreated you in vain. I shall have 
to testify of the proceedings of this Sabbath night, 
and tell how you turned a deaf ear to the call of 
your Saviour. I shall have to hear your sentence 
of condemnation, and see you driven down to 
hell. My God, the thought is dreadful ! Spare 
me this agony. Don't, O don't force this upon 
me I Don't compel the old man to be a witness 
against you in that awful day! Rather," he con- 
tinued, " hear my voice of invitation to-night, and 
come to Christ, so that instead of being a wntness 
against you in that day, I may be able to present 
you as my spiritual children, and say: ' Lord 
Jesus, here is the old man and his Sonoma chil- 
dren, all saved, and all ready to join together in a 
glad hallelujah to the Lamb that w^as slain ! ' " 

It was overwhelming. The pathos and power 
of the speaker were indescribable. There was a 
" breakdown " all over the vast congregation, 
and a rush of penitents to the altar, as one of the 
stirring camp meeting choruses pealed forth from 
the full hearts of the faithful. 

Father Cox's ready wit was equal to any occa- 
sion. At a camp meeting in the Bodega hills, in 
''opening the doors of the Church," he said; 



FATHER COX. 65 

'* Many souls have been converted, and now I 
want them all to join the Church. When I was a 
boy, I learned that it was best to string my fish as 
I caught them, lest they should flutter back into 
the water. I want to string my fish — that is, take 
all the young converts into the Church, and put 
them to work for Christ — lest they go back into the 
world"— 

'*You can't catch me!'' loudly interrupted a 
rowdyish-looking fellow who sat on a slab near 
the rostrum. 

'*I am not fishing for gar!'' retorted Father 
Cox, casting a contemptuous glance at the fellow, 
and then went on with his work. 

The gar fish is the abomination of all true fish- 
ermen — hard to catch, coarse-flavored, bony, and 
nearly worthless when caught. The vulgar fellow 
became the butt of the camp ground, and soon 
mounted his mustang and galloped off, amid the 
derision even of his own sort. 

Father Cox had a naturally hot temper, which 
sometimes flamed forth in a way that was startling. 
It would have been a bold man who would have 
tested his physical prowess in a combat. Beside 
him an ordinar^'-sized person looked hke a pigmy. 
Near San Juan, in Monterey County, he had 
occasion to cross a swollen stream by means of the 
water fence above the ford. The fence was flimsy, 
and Father Cox was heavj^ The undertaking was 
not an easy one at best, and Father Cox's diffi- 
culty and annoyance were enhanced by the un- 
generous and violent abuse and curses of an infidel 
blacksmith on the opposite side of the stream, who 
had worked himself into a rage because the im- 
mense weiirht of the old man had broken a rail or 

. . • • 1 

two of the fence. The situation was too critical 

for reply, as the mammoth preacher Cox *' cooned " 
5 



66 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

his way cautiously and painfully across the rickety 
bridge, at the imminent risk ever}^ moment of 
tumbling headlong into the roaring torrent below. 
Meanwhile the wicked and angry blacksmith kept 
up a volley of oaths and insulting epithets. The 
old Adam was waking up in the old preacher. By 
the time he had reached the shore he was thor- 
oughly mad, and rushing forward he grasped his 
persecutor and shook him until his breath was 
nearly out of him, saying: " 0,you foul-mouthed 
villain ! If it were not for the fear of my God, I 
would beat you into a jelly! " 

The blacksmith, a stalwart fellow, was aston- 
ished; and when Father Cox let him go, he had a 
new view of the Church militant. This scene was 
witnessed by a number of bystanders, who did not 
fail to report it, and it made the old preacher a 
hero with the rough fellows of San Juan, who 
thenceforward flocked to hear his preaching as 
they did to hear nobod}^ else. 

The imafje of Father Cox that is most vivid to 
m}^ mind as I close this unpretentious sketch is 
that which he presented as he stood in the pulpit 
at Stockton one night, during the Conference ses- 
sion, and sung, " I am going home to die no more," 
his rudd}^ face aglow, his blue eyes swimming in 
tears, his white hair glistening in the lamplight. 
He sleeps on the Bodega hills, amid the oaks and 
madrohas, whose branches wave in the breezes of 
the blue Pacific. He has gone home to die no 
more. 



THE ETHICS OF GRIZZLY HUNTING. 



ON the Petaluma boat I met him. He was 
on his way to Washington City, for the 
purpose of presenting to the President 
of the United States a curious chair 
made entirely of buck horns, a real 
marvel of ingenuity, of which he was quite vain. 
Dressed in buckskin, with fringed leggings and 
sleeves, belted and bristling with hunters' arms, 
strongly built and grizzlj'-bearded, he was a strik- 
ino- fioure as he sat the center of a crowd of ad- 
mirers. His countenance was expressive of a 
mixture of brutality, cunning, and good humor. 
He was a thorough animal. Wild frontier life had 
not sublimated this old sinner in the way pictured 
by writers who romance about such things at a 
distance. Contact with nature and Indians does 
not seem to exalt the white man, except in fiction. 
It tends rather to draw him back toward barba- 
rism. The regenade white only differs from the 
red savage in being a shade more devilish. 

" This is Seth Kinman, the great Indian fighter 
and bear hunter," said an officious passenger. 

Thus introduced, I shook hands with him. He 
seemed inclined to talk, and was kind enough to 
say he had heard of me and voted for me. Mak- 
intr due acknowledgement of the honor done me, I 
seated myself near enough to hear, but not so near 
as to catch the fumes of the alcoholic stimulants of 
which he was in the habit of indulcrinir freelv. 
His talk was of himself, in connection with In- 

(67) 



68 CAIJKORNIA SKICTCIIKS. 

dians and bears. He seemed to look upon them 
in the same hglit — as natural enemies, to be cir- 
cumvented or destroyed as opportunity permitted. 
'* You can't trust an Injun,"' he said. " 1 know 
'em. If they git the upper hand of you, they'll 
cinch you, sure. The only way to git along with 
'em is to make 'em afeard of you. They'd put a 
arrer through me long ago if I hadn't made 'em 
believe I was a conjurer. It happened this way: 
I had a contract for furnishin' venison for the 
troops in Humboldt, and took along a lot of Injuns 
for the hunt. We had mighty good luck, and 
started back to Eureka loaded down with the finest 
sort of deer meat. I saw the Injuns laggin* behind, 
and whisperin' to one another, and mistrusted 
tilings wasn't exactly right. So I keeps my eye 
on 'em, and had old Cottonblossom here " — ca- 
ressing a long, rusty-looking rifle — '' ready in case 
anything should turn up. You can't trust a Injun 
— they're all alike; if they git the upper hand of 
you, you're gone!" He winked knowingly and 
chuckled, and then went on: '* I stopped and let 
the Injuns come up, and then got to talkin' with 
'em about huntin' and shootin'. 1 told 'em I was 
a conjurer, and couldn't be killed by a bullet or 
arrer, and to prove it I took off my buckskin shirt 
and set it up twenty steps off, and told 'em the 
man who could put a arrer through it might have 
it. They were more tlian a hour shootin' at that 
shirt — the same one I've got on now — but the}' 
couldn't fuze it." 

** How was that?" asked an open-mouthed young- 
fellow, blazing with cheap jewelry. 

'* Why, you see, younjx man, this shirt is well 
tanned and tough, and I just stood it up on the 
edges, so that when a arrer struck it, it would nat- 
urally give way. If I had only had it on, the 



THE ETHICS OF (iRIZZLY HUNTING. 69 

arrers would have gone clean through it, and me 
too. Injuns are mighty smart in some things, but 
thev all believe in devils, conjurin', and such like. 
I played 'em fine on this idee, and they were 
afeard to touch me, though they were ready enough 
if they had dared. While 1 was out choppin' 
wood one day, I see a smoke risin', and thinkin' 
somethin' must be wrong, I got back as soon as I 
could, and sure enough my house was burnin'. I 
knowed it was Injuns, and circlin' round I found 
the track of a big Injun ; it was plain enough to 
see where he had crossed the creek comin' and 
goin'. I got his skelp — why, his har was that 
long," he said, measuring to his elbow, and leer- 
ing hideously. 

Whether or not this incident was apocryphal I 
could not decide, but it was evident enough that 
he intensely relished the notion of '' skelping " an 
Indian. 

" I want you to come up to Humboldt and see 
me kill a grizzly," he continued, addressing him- 
self to me. "An' let me tell you now, if ever you 
shoot a grizzly, hit him about the ear. If you hit 
him right, you will kill liim; if you don't kill him, 
you spile his mind. I have seen a grizzh', after 
he had been hit about the ear, go roun' an' roun' 
like a top. No danger in a bar after you have hit 
him in the ear — it's his tender place. But a bar's 
mighty dangerous if you hit him anywhere else, 
an' don't kill him. Me an' a Injun was huntin' in 
the chafarraU an' come across a big grizzly. We 
both blazed awa}^ at him at close range. I saw he 
was hit, for he whirled half roun', an' partly keeled 
over; but he got up, an' started for us, mad as 
fury. We had no time to load, an' there was 
nothin' left but to run for it. It was nip an' tuck 
between us. I'm a good runner, an' the Injun 



70 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

wasn't slow. Lookin' back, I saw the bar was 
gainin' on us. I knowed he'd git one of us, an' so 
I hauled off an' knocked the Injun down. Before 
he could git up the bar had him." He paused, 
and looked around complacentl3\ 

" Did the bear kill the Indian? '' asked the young 
man with abundant jewelry. 

*'No; he chaived him up awhile, and then left 
him, and the Injun finally got well. If it had been 
a white man, he would have died. Injuns can 
stand a great deal of hurtin' an' not die." 

At this point the thought came into my mind 
that if this incident must be taken as a true pres- 
entation of the ethics of bear hunting as practiced 
by Mr. Kinman, / did not aspire to the honor of 
becoming his hunting companion. Are the ethics 
of the stock exchange any higher than those of the 
Humboldt bear hunter? Let the bear, bankruptcy, 
or the devil take the hindmost, is the motto of hu- 
man nature on its dark side, whether on Wall 
Street or in the California chaparral. 

*' Were 3'ou ever in Napa City? " he inquired of 
me. 

I answered in the affirmative. 

" Did you see the big stuffed grizzly in the drug 
store? You have, eh? Well, I killed that bar, 
the biggest ever shot in Californy. I was out one 
day lookin' for a deer about sundown, an' heerd 
the dogs a barkin' as they was comin' down Eel 
River. In a little while here come the bar, an' a 
whopper he was ! I raised old Cottonblossom, an' 
let him have it as he passed me. I saw I had hit 
him, for he seemed to drag his lines [loins] as he 
plunged down the bank of the river among the 
grapevines an' thick bushes. Next mornin' I took 
the dogs an' put 'em on his trail. I could see that 
his back was broke, because I could see the print 




« Before he could git up the bar had him.'''' 



(71) 



THE ETHICS OF GRIZZLY HUNTING. 73 

where his hind parts had dragged down the sandy 
bed of the river. By an' by I heerd the dogs 
a bayin\ an' I knowed they'd come up with him. 
I hurried up, an' found the bar sittin' on his rump 
in a hole of water about three feet deep, snappin' 
his teeth at the dogs as they swum around him, 
barkin' Hke fury. He couldn't git any further — 
old Cottonblossom had done his work for him. I 
thought I would have a little fun by aggravatin' 
him awhile." 

" What do you mean by aggravating the bear ? " 
asked a bystander. 

" I would just take big rocks an' go up close to 
him, an' hit him between the eyes. You ought to 
have heerd him yowl! His eyes actually turned 
green, he was so mad, an' his jaws champed like 
a sawmill; but he couldn't budge — every time he 
tried to git on his feet he fell back agin, the mad- 
dest bar ever seen." At this point in the narra- 
tion Kinman's sinister blue eyes gleamed with 
brute ferocity. My aversion to making him my 
hunting companion increased. *' After I had my 
fun with him, I took old Cottonblossom an' planted 
a bullet under his shoulder, an' he tumbled over 
dead. It took four of us to pull him out of that 
hole, an' he weighed thirteen hundred pounds." 

I had enough of this, and left the group, reflect- 
ing on the peculiar ethics of bear hunting. The 
last glimpse I had of this child of nature, he was 
chuckling over a grossly obscene picture which he 
was exhibiting to some congenial spirits. His '\\\\\- 
tation to join him in a bear hunt has not yet been 
accepted. 



STEWART. 



1 FIRST met him in New Orleans, in Febru- 
ary, 1855. He was small, sandy-haired and 
whiskered, blue-eyed, bushy-headed, with an 
impediment in his speech, rapid in movement, 
and sh}^ in manner. We were on our way to 
California, and were fellow-missionaries. At the 
Advocate office, on Magazine Street, he was dis- 
cussed in my presence. *' He won't do for Cali- 
fornia," said one who has since filled a large space 
in the public eye; "he won't do for that fast 
country — he is too timid and too slow." Never 
did a keen observer make a greater mistake in 
judging a man. 

Stewart stood with us on the deck of the '* Dan- 
iel Webster" that afternoon as we swept down the 
mighty Mississippi, taking a last, lingering look at 
the shores we were leaving, perhaps forever, and 
gazing upon the glories of the sunset on the Gulf. 
I remember well the feelings of mingled sadness 
and curiosity and youthful hopefulness that swayed 
me, until just as the twilight deepened into dark- 
ness we struck the long, heavy sea swell, and I 
lost at once my sentiment and my dinner. Sea- 
sickness is the only very distinct remembrance of 
those days on the Gulf. Seasick, seasicker, sea- 
sickest ! Stewart succumbed at once. He was 
very sick and very low-spirited. One day in the 
Caribbean Sea he had crawled out of his hot state- 
room to seek a breath of fresh air under the awn- 
ing on deck. He looked unutterly miserable as he 
said to me: "Do you believe in presentiments?" 
(74) 



STEWART. 75 

" Yes, I do," was 1113^ half jocular reply. 

*' So do I," he said with great solemnity; '*and 
I have had a presentiment ever since we left New 
Orleans that we should never reach California, 
that we should be caught in a storm, and the ship 
and all on board lost." 

*'/ have had a presentiment," I answered, '' that 
we shall arrive safe and sound in San Francisco, 
and that we shall live and labor many years in 
California, and do some good. Now, I will put 
my presentiment against yours." 

He looked at me sadly, and sighed as he looked 
out upon the boiling sea that seemed like molten 
copper under the midday blaze of the tropical sun, 
and no more was said about presentiments. 

He was with us at Gre3^town, where we went 
ashore and got our first taste of tropical scener}', 
and where we declined a polite invitation from a 
native to dine on stewed monkey and boiled igua- 
na. (The iguana is a species of big lizard, highly 
prized as a delicacy by the Nicaraguans.) He 
enjoyed with us the sights and adventures of the 
journey across the isthmus. This was a new world 
to him and us, and not even the horrible profanity 
and vulgarity of the ninety " roughs " who came in 
the steerage from New York could destroy the 
charm and glory of the tropics. Among those 
ninety drinking, swearing, gambling fellows, there 
were ninety revolvers, and as we ascended the 
beautiful San Juan River, flowing" between <xio;antic 
avenues of lofty teak and other trees, and past the 
verdant grass islands that waved with the breeze 
and swayed with the motion of the limpid waters, 
the volleys of oaths and firearms were alike inces- 
sant. Huge, lazy, rusty-looking alligators lined 
the banks of the rivers by hundreds, and furnished 
targets for these free-and-easy Americans, who had 



^6 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

left one part of their country for its good, to seek 
a field congenial to their tastes and adapted to their 
talents. The aUigators took it all very easy in 
most cases, rolling leisurely into the water as the 
bullets rattled harmlessly against their scaly sides. 
One lucky shot hit a great monster in the eye, and 
he bounded several feet into the air, and lashed 
the water into foam wdth his struggles, as the 
steamer swept out of sight. The sport was now 
and then enlivened by the appearance of a few 
monke3'S, at whom (or which) the revolvered 
Americans would blaze away as they (the mon- 
keys) clambered in fright to the highest branches 
of the trees. Whisky, profanity, and gunpowder 
— three things dear to the devil, and that go well 
together — ruled the day, and gave proof that North 
American civilization had found its way to those 
solitudes of nature. Birds of gayest plumage flut- 
tered in the air, and on either hand the forest 
blazed in all the vividness of the tropical flora. 
Now and then we would meet a bungo, a long, 
narrow river boat, usually propelled by oars worked 
by eight tawny fellows whose costume was — a pan- 
ama hat and a cigar ! Despite their primitive style 
of dress, their manners contrasted favorably with 
the fellow-passengers of whom I have spoken. 
But I must hurry on, nor suffer this sketch to be 
diverted from its proper course. How we had to 
stop at night on the river and lie on the open deck, 
while the woods echoed with the revelry of the 
'* roughs; " how we were detained at Fort Casti- 
llo, and how I fared sumptuously, being taken for 
a ** Padre; " how I didn't throw the contemptible 
little whiffet who commanded the lake steamer 
overboard for his unbearable insolence; how we 
landed in the surf at San Juan del Sur, and got 
drenched; how we rode mules in the darkness; 



STEWART. 77 

how nearly we escaped a massacre when a drunken 
American slapped the face of a native at the 
''Halfway House," and got stabbed for it, and 
five hundred muskets and the ninety revolvers 
were about to be used in shooting; how we averted 
the catastrophe by a little strategy, and galloped 
away on our mules, thie ladies thundering along 
after in Concord wagons; how at midnight we 
reached the blue Pacific, and gave vent to our joy 
in rousing cheers ; and how in due time we passed 
the Golden Gate in the night, and waked up in 
San Francisco harbor — may not be told, farther 
than what is given in this paragraph. 

Stewart was sent to the mines to preach. This 
suited him. Some men shrink from hardships; 
he seemed to dread only an easy place. Walking 
his mountain circuit, sleeping in the rude miners' 
cabins, and sharing their rough fare, he was looked 
upon as a strange sort of man, who loved toil and 
forgot self. Such a man he was. His greatest joy 
was the thought that he could do a work for his 
Master where others could not or would not go. 
It was with this feeling that he took the work of 
agent for the Church paper and the college, and 
wandered over California and Oregon, doing what 
was intensely repugnant to his natural feelings. 
He once told me that he had been such a sinner in 
his youth that he felt it was right that he should 
bear the heaviest cross. The idea of penance un- 
consciously entered into his view of Christian duty, 
and when he was " roughing it " in the mountains 
in midwinter his letters were most cheerful in tone. 
In the city he was restive, and the more comforta- 
ble were his quarters the more eager was he to get 
away. He had fits of fearful mental depression at 
times, when he would pass whole nights rapidly 
pacing his room, with sighs and groans and tears. 



^8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

His temper was quick and hot. At a camp meet- 
ing in Sacramento County, he astonished beyond 
measure a disorderly fellow by giving him a sud- 
den and severe caning. After it was over, Stew- 
art's shame and remorse were great. Everybody 
else, however, applauded the deed. He had seen 
service as a soldier in the Mexican war, and was 
noted for his daring, but now that he belonged to 
a noncombatant order, he was mortified that for 
the moment his martial instincts had prevailed. 
His moral courage was equal to any test. No 
man dealt more plainly and sternly with the preva- 
lent vices of California, nor dealt more faithfully 
with a friend. Many a gambler and debauchee 
winced under his reproofs, and many a Methodist 
preacher and layman had his eyes opened by his 
rebukes. But he was tender as well as faithful, 
and he rarely gave offense. He loved, and was 
loved by, little children ; and there is no stronger 
proof of a pure and gentle nature than that. He 
was a Protestant Carmelite, shunning ease, and 
glorying only in what the flesh naturally abhors. 
He would have been pained by popularity, in the 
usual sense of the word. An}^ unusual attention 
distressed him, and he alwa3^s shrank from obser- 
vation, except when duty called him out. A grad- 
uate of Davidson College, North Carolina, and a 
graduate in medicine, he was more anxious to con- 
ceal his learning than most men are to parade 
theirs. But the luster of such a jewel could not 
be hid, and that popular instinct which recognizes 
true souls had given Stewart his proper rank be- 
fore his fellow-preachers knew his full value. 

When the war broke out in 1861, Stewart was 
preaching in Los Angeles County. The roar of 
the great conflict reached him, and he became 
restless. He felt that he ought to share the dan- 



STEWART. 



79 



gers and sufferings of the South. In reply to a 
letter from him asking my advice, I advised him 
not to go. But in a few days I got a note from 
him, saying that he had prayed over the matter, 
and felt it his duty to go — he was needed in the 
hospital work, and he could not shrink. I doubt 
not there was a subtle attraction to him in the dan- 
ger and hardship to be met and endured. The 
next news was that he had started across Mexico 
to the Rio Grande alone, on horseback, with his 
saddlebags, Bible, and hymn book. 

Shortly after crossing the Mexican border he 
fell in with a man who gave his name as McManus, 
who told him he also was bound to Texas, and 
offered his company. Stewart consented, and they 
rode on together in what proved to be the path of 
fate to both. On the third day that they had jour- 
neyed in company they stopped in a lonely place 
under the shade of some trees, near a spring of 
water, to rest and eat. As usual, Stewart read a 
chapter or two in his pocket Bible, and then took 
out his diary and began to write. McManus now 
saw the opportunity he was seeking. Seizing 
Stewart's gun, he placed the muzzle against his 
breast, and fired. He staggered back and fell, the 
lifeblood gushing from his heart, and with a few 
gasps and moans he was dead. The last words he 
had just traced in his diary were these: ** Lord 
Jesus, guide and keep me tliis day." Providence 
has presented to my mind no greater or sadder 
mvsterv than such a death for such a man. 

McManus rode back to the little town of Rosa- 
rio, scarcely caring to conceal his awful crime 
among the desperadoes whh whom he associated. 
He rode Stewart's horse, and took, with the well- 
worn saddlebags, the Bible, the hymn book, and 
the eight hundred dollars in gold which had led 



8o CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

him to commit the cruel murder. A small party 
of Texans happened to be passing through that 
region, who, hearing what had been done, arrested 
the murderer; but McManus's Mexican friends 
interfered, and forced the Texans to liberate him. 
But the devil lured the murderer on to his fate. 
He started again toward the Rio Grande, still 
mounted on the murdered preacher's horse, and 
again he fell into the hands of the Texans. What 
befell him then was not stated definitely in the nar- 
rative given by one of the party. It was merely 
said: '* McManus will kill no more preachers." 
This does not leave a very wide field for the exer- 
cise of the imagination. Stewart was buried where 
he met his strange and tragic end. Of all the men 
who bore the banner of the cross in the early days 
of California, there was no truer or knightlier soul 
than his. 



A MENDOCINO MURDER. 



A 



MONG my occasional hearers when I 
preached on Weber Avenue, in Stockton, 
was a handsome, sunny-faced young man 
who, I was informed, was studying for the 
ministry of the Presbyterian Church. His 
manners were easy and graceful, his voice pleas- 
ant, his smile winning, and his whole appearance 
prepossessing to an unusual degree. He was one 
of the sort of men that everybody likes at first 
sight. I lost trace of him when I left the place, 
but retained a decidedly pleasant remembrance of 
him, and a hopeful interest in his welfare and use- 
fulness. My surprise may be imagined when, a 
few 3^ears afterwards, I found him in jail charged 
with complicity in one of the most horrible mur- 
ders ever perpetrated in any country. 

It was during my pastorate in Santa Rosa in 
1873 that I was told that Geiger, a prisoner con- 
fined in the county jail, awaiting trial for murder, 
had asked to see me. Upon visiting him in his 
cell, I found that his business with me was not 
concerning his soul, but his famil3^ They were 
very poor, and since his imprisonment matters had 
been going worse and worse with them, until they 
were in actual want. Knowing well the warm- 
hearted communit}^ of Santa Rosa, I did not hesi- 
tate to promise in their name relief for his wife 
and children. After having satisfied him on this 
point, I tried to lead the conversation to the sub- 
ject of religion; but seeing he was not disposed to 
talk further, I withdrew. Before leaving the jail, 
6 (81) 



82 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

however, I was asked to visit another prisoner 
charged with participation in the same murder. 
On going into his cell, the recognition was mutual. 
It was Alexander, whom I had known and to 
whom I had preached at Stockton. 

"I little thought when I saw you last that we 
would meet in such a place as this," he said with 
emotion. 

" How comes it that you are here? Surely you 
cannot be the murderer of a woman?" I asked, 
perhaps a little abruptly. 

" It is a curious case, and a long story," he said; 
" it will all come out on the trial." 

I looked at him with an interrogation point in 
my eyes. Could that pale, meditative, scholarly- 
looking young man be capable of taking part in 
such a dark traged}^ as that of the murder of 
which he had been accused? I left him inclined 
to pronounce him innocent, despite the strong evi- 
dence against him. But the conviction of many, 
who w^atched the trial a few months after, was 
clear that he was one of Mrs. Strong's slayers. 

Briefly given, here is the stor}^ of the murder as 
gathered from the evidence on the trial, and recol- 
lected after the lapse of several years : 

Mrs. Strong was a middle-aged woman, w^ith the 
violent temper and hardened nature so often met 
wdth in women who have been subjected to the in- 
fluences of such a life as she had led — among 
rough men, and in a rough country, where might 
too often makes right. Geiger and Alexander 
lived not far from the Strongs, in the wildest region 
of Mendocino County. A quarrel arose between 
these two men on one side, and Mrs. Strong on 
the other, concerning land, the particulars of which 
have passed my memory. It seems that the right 
of the case lay rather with the men, and that Mrs, 




///:s 



/ cA VA '' (IV ( ( 



III ^l hi SI l^ III oj a S~l'(7yifl£r so>/ici/ii/i:^ . 

(83) 



A MENDOCINO MURDER. 85 

Strong, with a woman's peculiar talent for provo- 
cation, rather presumed on her sex in ignoring 
their claims, at the same time forfeiting all right to 
consideration on that score by violent language 
and unwomanly taunts whenever she met them. 
According to the most charitable theory (and to 
me it seems the most reasonable), Geiger and 
Alexander, previously angered by unreasonable 
opposition, accidentally met Mrs. Strong in a piece 
of woods. The subject of dispute was brought 
up, and it is supposed that the unfortunate woman 
became more and more violent and abusive, until 
finally, maddened by her words, one of the men, 
Geiger, it is supposed, struck her down. Then, 
seeing that she was injured fatally, and fearing 
discover}^ he and Alexander finished the job and, 
fastening a heavy stone to her neck, hid the body 
in one of the darkest holes of the stream that 
flowed through those wild hills, piling stones on 
the breast and hmbs of the corpse to insure con- 
cealment. 

Of course Mrs. Strong was missed, and search 
for her betran, in which her two murderers were 
forced to join. What a terrible time that was lor 
the two men — those rides through the woods and 
can3^ons, a hundred times passing the dreadful spot 
with its awful secret! Surely worse punishment 
on earth for their terrible crime could not be con- 
ceived. Those two instruments of human torture 
which the Inquisition has never surpassed, remorse 
and fear, were both gnawing at the hearts of these 
wretched men during all of that long and futile 
search. But it was given up at last, and they 
breathed easier. 

A few weeks after, an Indian on his pony, riding 
through the woods, felt thirsty, and turned down 
the canyon to a spot where the trees stood thick, 



86 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

and the rocks jutted out over the water hke greedy 
monsters looking at their helpless prey beneath. 
He stooped to quench his thirst in the primitive 
fashion, but before his lips had touched the water 
his roving eye caught sight of a swaying something 
a little way up the stream that made even that 
stolid red man shrink from drinking that sparkling 
fluid, for it had flowed over the body of a dead 
woman. Mrs. Strong was found. The force of 
the stream had washed away the weighting stones 
from the lower limbs, and the stream having fallen 
several feet since the heavy rains of the past weeks, 
the feet of the corpse were visible above the water. 
The stone was still attached to the neck, thus 
keeping all but those ghastly feet under the water. 
The long-hidden murder was out at last, and the 
quiet Indian riding away on his tired pony carried 
with him the fate of Geigfer and Alexander. When 
the news was told, it was remembered how unwill- 
ing they had been to search near that spot, and 
how uneasv and excited thev had seemed whenever 
it was approached. Indeed, they had been objects 
of suspicion to many, and the discovery of the 
body was followed immediately by their arrest. 
The trial resulted in the acquittal of Alexander, 
the justice of which was questioned by man}^ and 
a sentence of lifelong imprisonment for Geiger. 
Before his removal to the State prison, however, 
he made his escape, aided, it is supposed, by his 
wife, who is thought to have brought him tools for 
that purpose secreted in her clothing. He has 
never been found, and in all probability never will 
be. Some say he has never left the countr}^ and 
is livino; the life of a wild animal in the mountains 
there; but it is more likely that he, like the first 
murderer, fled to far lands, where he must ever 
bear the scarlet letter of remorse in his heart. 



MY FIRST CALIFORNIA CAMP MEETING. 



A CALIFORNIA camp meeting I had never 
seen, and so when the eccentric Dr. Can- 
non, who was dentist, evangeHst, and 
many other things all at once, sent me an 
invitation to be present at one that was 
soon to come off near Vallecito, in Calaveras 
County, I promptly signified my acceptance, and 
began preparation for the trip. It was in 1856, 
w'hen we occupied the parsonage in Sonora that 
had been bequeathed to us in all its peculiar glory 
by our bachelor predecessors. It had one room, 
which served all the purposes of parlor, library, 
dining room, and boudoir. The bookcase was 
two dry goods boxes placed lengthwise, one above 
the other. The safe, or cupboard, was a single 
dry goods box, nailed to the redwood boards, of 
which the house was built, with cleats for our 
breakfast, dinner, and tea sets, which, though 
mentioned here in plural form, were singular in 
more than one sense of the word. The establish- 
ment boasted a kitchen, the roof of which was less 
than the regulation height of the American soldier, 
the floor of which was made b}^ nature, the one 
window of which had neither sash nor glass, the 
door of which had no lock, but was kept shut by 
a small leather strap and an eight-penny nail and 
its successors. The thieves did not steal from us 
— they couldn't. Dear old cabin on the hillside I 
It brings up only pleasant memories of a time when 
life was young and hope was bright. When we 
closed the door of the parsonage, and, sitting be- 

(87) 



88 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

hind McCarthy & Cooper's two-horse team — one 
a beautiful white, the other a shining bay — dashed 
out of town in the direction of the bold and brawl- 
ing Stanislaus, no fear was felt for any valuables 
left behind. The prancing of that spirited white 
horse on the narrow grade that wound its way a 
thousand feet above the bed of the river was a 
more serious matter, suggesting the possibiHty of 
an adventure that would have prevented the writing 
of these " Sketches." The Stanislaus, having its 
sources among the springs and snows of the 
Sierras, was a clear and sparkling stream before 
the miners muddied it by digging its banks 
and its bed for gold. It cuts its way through a 
wild and rugged region, dashing, foaming, fighting 
for its passage along narrow passes where the 
beetling cliffs and toppling crags repel the invasion 
of a human foot. It seems in hot haste to reach 
the valley, and fairly leaps dow^n its rocky chan- 
nel. In hiorh water it roars and rushes with ter- 
rific violence. But it w^as behaving quietly as we 
passed it, keeping w^ithin its narrow channel, along 
which a number of patient Chinamen were work- 
ing over some abandoned gold diggings, wearing 
satisfied looks, indicating success. Success is the 
rule with the Chinaman. He is acquisitive by na- 
ture, and thrifty from necessity. He has taught 
the conceited Americans some astonishing lessons 
in the matter of cheap living. But they are not 
thankful for the instruction, nor are they disposed 
to reduce it to practice. They are not yet pre- 
pared to adopt Asiatic ideas of living and labor. 
The contact of the two civilizations produces only 
friction now. What the future may bring forth I 
will not here prophesy, as this has properly noth- 
ing to do with the camp meeting. 

An expected circus had rather thrown the camp 



MY FIRST CAT.IFORNIA CAMP MEETING. 89 

meeting into the background. The highly colored 
sensational posters were seen in every conspicuous 
place, and the talk of the hotel keepers, hostlers, 
and straggling pedestrians was all about the circus. 
The camp meeting was a bold experiment under 
the circumstances. The camp ground was less 
than a mile from Vallecito, a mining camp, whose 
reputation was such as to suggest the need of 
special evangelical influences. It was attacking 
the enemy in his stronghold. The spot selected 
for the encampment was a beautiful one. On a 
gentle slope, in the midst of a grove of live oaks, a 
few rude tents were pitched, with sides of un- 
dressed redwood, and covered with nothing, so 
that the stars could be gazed at during the still 
hours of the cloudless California summer night. 
The "preacher's stand" was erected under one 
of the largest of the oaks, in front of which were 
ranged rough, backless seats for the accommoda- 
tion of the worshipers. A well of pure water was 
close at hand; and a long table, composed of un- 
dressed boards, was spread under clustering pines 
conveniently situated. Nobody thought of a table- 
cloth, and the crockery used was small in quantity 
and plain in quality. 

During the first day and night of the meeting 
small but w^ell-behaved audiences waited upon 
the word, manifesting apparently more curiosity 
than religious interest. The second night w^as a 
solemn and trying time. The crowd had rushed 
to the circus. Three or four preachers and about 
a dozen hearers held the camp ground. The lan- 
terns, swung in the oaks, gave a dim, uncertain 
light, the gusts of wind that rose and fell and 
moaned among the branches of the trees threaten- 
ing their extinguishment every moment. One or 
two of the lights flickered out entirely, increasing 



go CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the gloom and the weirdness of the scene. It was 
a solemn time ; the sermon was solemn, the hearers 
were solemn, and there was a solemnity of cadence 
in the night wind. Everybody seemed gloomy 
and discouraged but the irrepressible Cannon. 
He was in high glee. "The Lord is going to do 
a great work here," he said at the close of the 
service, rubbing his hands together excitedly. 

" What makes you think so? " 

"The devil is busy working against us, and 
when the devil works the Lord is sure to work too. 
The people are all at the circus to-night, but their 
consciences will be uneasy. The Holy Spirit will 
be at work with them. To-morrow night you will 
see a great crowd here, and souls will be con- 
verted." 

Perhaps there were few that indorsed his logic 
or shared his faith, but the result singularly veri- 
fied his prophecy. The circus left the camp. The 
reaction seemed to be complete. A great crowd 
came out next night, the Hghts burned more 
brightly, the faithful felt better, the preachers took 
fire, penitents were invited and came forward for 
prayers, and for the first time the old camp meet- 
ing choruses echoed among the Calaveras hills. 
The meeting continued day and night, the crowd 
increasing at every service, until Sunday. Many a 
wandering believer, coming in from the hills and 
gulches, had his conscience quickened and his re- 
hgious hopes rekindled, and the little handful that 
sung and prayed at the beginning of the meeting 
swelled to quite an army. 

On Sunday Bishop Kavanaugh preached to an 
immense crowd. That eloquent Kentuckian was 
in one of his inspired moods, and swept every- 
thing before him. For nearly two hours he held 
the vast concourse of people spellbound, and to- 



MY FIRST CALIFORNIA CAMP MEETING. 9I 

ward the end of his sermon his form seemed to 
dihite, his face kindled with its pulpit radiance, 
and his voice was like a golden trumpet. Amens 
and shouts burst forth all around the stand, and 
tears rained from hundreds of eyes long unused to 
the melting mood. California had her camp meet- 
in<r christening that day. Attracted by curiosity, 
a Digger Indian chief, with a number of '* bucks 
and squaws, had come upon the ground. The 
chief had seated himself against a tree on the outer 
edo-e of the crowd, and never took his eyes trom 
the^ Bishop for a moment. I watched him almost 
as closely as he watched the Bishop, for I Avas 
curious to know what were the thoughts passing 
through his benighted mind, and to see v^hat elfect 
the service would have upon him. His interest 
seemed to increase as the discourse proceeded. 
At length he showed signs of profound emotion; 
his bosom heaved, tears streamed down his tawny 
cheeks, and finally, in a burst of irrepressible ad- 
miration, he pointed to the Bishop, and exclaimed: 
'^Capitan! Cafitan! " The chief did not under- 
stand English.^ What was it that so stirred his 
soul? Was it the voice, the gesture, the play of 
feature, the magnetism of the true orator? The 
good Bishop said it was the Holy Spirit— the wind 
that bloweth where it hsteth. 

The Sunday night service drew another large 
audience, and culminated in a great victory. The 
singing and prayers were kept up away beyond 
midnight. The impression of one song I shall 
never'^forget. The Bishop was my bedfellow^ 
We had retired for the night, and were stretched 
on our primitive couch, gazing unobstructed upon 
the heavenly hosts shining on high. 

'' Hark! listen to that song," said the Bishop, as 
a chorus, in a clear, buglelike voice, floated out 



92 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

upon the midnight air. The words I do not clearly 
recall; there was something about 

The sweet fields of Eden, 
On the other side of Jordan, 

and a chorus ending in "hallelujah." I seemed 
to float upw^ard on the wings of that melody, be- 
yond the starry depths, through the gates of pearl, 
until it seemed to mingle with the sublime doxolo- 
gies of the great multitude of the glorified that no 
one can number. "What opera can equal that? 
There is a religious melody that has a quality of its 
own which no art can imitate." 

The Bishop's thought w^as not new, but I had a 
new perception of its truth at that moment. 

One of the converts of this camp meeting was 
Levi Vanslyke. A wilder mustang was never 
caught by the gospel lasso. (Excuse this figure — 
it suits the case.) He was w^hat was termed a 
" capper" to a gambling hell in the town. Tall, 
excessively angular, jerky in movement, with sin- 
gularly uneven features, his face and figure w^ere 
very striking. He drifted with the crowd to the 
camp ground one night, and his destiny w^as 
changed. He never went back to gambling. His 
conscience w^as awakened, and his soul mightily 
stirred, by the preaching, prayers, and songs. 
Amid the w^onder and smiles of the crowd, he rose 
from his seat, went forward, and kneeled among 
the penitents, exhibiting signs of deep distress. 
An arrow of conviction had penetrated his heart, 
and brought him down at the foot of the cross. 
There he knelt, praying. The services w^ere pro- 
tracted far into the night, exhortations, songs, and 
prayers filling up the time. Suddenly Vanslyke 
rose from his knees with a bound, his face beam- 
ing with joy, and indulged in demonstrations w^hich 
necessitated the suspension of all other exercises. 



MY FIRST CALIFORNIA CAMP MEETING. 93 

He shouted and praised God, he shook hands with 
the brethren, he exhorted his late associates to 
turn from their wicked ways — in fact, he took pos- 
session of the camp ground, and the regular pro- 
gramme for the occasion was entirely superseded. 
The wild Vallecito '' boys " were awe-struck, and 
quailed under his appeals. 

Vanslyke was converted, a brand plucked from 
the burning. No room was left for doubt. lie 
abandoned his old life at once. Soon he felt in- 
ward movings to preach the gospel, and began to 
study theology. He was a hard student, if not an 
apt one, and succeeded in passing the examinations 
(which in those days were not very rigid), and in 
due time was standing as a watchman on the walls 
of Zion. He was a faithful and useful minister of 
Jesus Christ. There was no backward movement 
in his religious life. He was faithful unto death, 
taking the hardest circuits uncomplainingly, always 
humble, self-denying, and cheerful, doing a work 
for his Master which many a showier man might 
covet in the day when He will reckon with His 
servants. He traveled and preached many years, 
a true soldier of Jesus Christ. He died in great 
peace, and is buried among the hills of Southern 
Oregon 

An episode connected with this camp meeting 
was a visit to the Big Tree Grove of Calaveras. 
Every reader is familiar with descriptions of this 
wonderful forest, but no description can give an 
adequate impression of its solemn grandeur and 
beauty. The ride from Murphy's Camp in the 
early morning; the windings of the road among 
the colossal and shapelv pines ; the burst of wonder 
and delight of some of our party, and the silent, 
yet perhaps deeper, enjoyment of others as we 
rode into the midst of the Titanic grove — all this 



94 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

made an experience which cannot be transferred 
to the printed page. The remark of the thought- 
ful woman who walked by my side expressed the 
sentiment that was uppermost in my own con- 
sciousness as I contemplated these wonders of the 
Almighty's handiwork: " God has created one 
spot where he will be worshiped, and it is this! " 



THE TRAGEDY AT ALGERINE. 



HOW Algerine Camp got its name I cannot 
tell. It was named before my day in 
California. The miners called it simply 
"Algerine," for short. They had a pe- 
culiar way of abbreviating all proper 
names. San Francisco was "Frisco," Chinese 
Camp was " Chinee," and Jamestown was "Jim- 
town." So Algerine was as many syllables as 
could be spared for this camp, whose fame still 
lingers as one of the richest, rowdiest, bloodiest 
camps of the Southern mines. Situated some 
seven or eight miles from Sonora, if in the early 
days it did not rival that lively city in size, it sur- 
passed it in the recklessness with which its deni- 
zens gave themselves up to drinking, fighting, 
gambling, and general licentiousness. The name 
suited the place, whatever may have been its ety- 
mology. It was at the height of its glory for rich 
diggings and bad behavior in 1851. Lucky strikes 
and wild doings were the order of the day. A 
tragedy at Algerine ceased to excite more than a 
feeble interest — tragedies there had become com- 
monplace. The pistol was the favorite weapon 
with the Algerines, but the monotony of shooting 
was now and then broken by a stabbing affair, of 
which a Mexican or native Californian was usually 
the hero. It was a disputed point whether the re- 
volver or the dirk was the safer and more effect- 
ive weapon in a free fight. Strong arguments 
were used on both sides of this interesting ques- 

(95) 



96 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

tion, and popular opinion in the camp vacillated, 
taking direction according to the result of the last 
encounter. 

With all its wickedness, Algerine had a public 
opinion and moral code of its own. The one sin 
that had no forgiveness was stealing. The remain- 
ing nine of the Ten Commandments nobody 
seemed to remember, but a stand was taken upon 
the eighth. Men that swore, ignored the Sabbath, 
gambled, got drunk, and were ready to use the 
pistol or knife on the slightest pretext, would flame 
with virtuous rage, and clamor for capital punish- 
ment, if a sluice w^ere robbed, or the least article 
of any sort stolen. A thief was more completely 
outlawed than a murderer. The peculiar condi- 
tions existing, and the genius of the country, com- 
bined to develop this anomalous public sentiment, 
which will be illustrated by an incident that oc- 
curred in the year above referred to. 

About nine o'clock one morning a messenger 
was seen riding at full speed through the main 
street of Sonora, his horse panting and white with 
foam. He made his way to the sheriff's office, 
and, on the appearance of one of the deputies, 
cried — well, I won't give his exact words, for they 
are not quotable; but the substance of his message 
was that a robbery had been committed at Alge- 
rine, that a mob had collected, and that one of the 
supposed robbers was in their hands. 

'' Hurr}^ up, Captain, or you'll be too late to do 
any good — the camp is just boiling! " 

Capt. Stuart, the deputy sheriff, was soon in the 
saddle, and on the way to Algerine. Stuart was a 
soldierly-looking man, over six feet high, square- 
shouldered, brawny, and with a dash of grace- 
fulness in his bearing. He had fought in the war 
with Mexico, was known to be as brave as a lion, 



THE TRAGEDY AT ALGERINE. 97 

and was a general favorite. On a wider field he 
has since achieved a wider fame. 

*' There they are, Captain," said the messenger, 
pointing to the hill overlooking the camp from the 
north. 

*'My God! it's only a boy! " exclaimed Stuart, 
as his eye took in the scene. 

Stripped of all but his shirt and white pants, 
bareheaded and barefooted, with a rope around 
his neck, the other end of which was held by a 
big, brutal-looking fellow in a blue flannel shirt, 
stood the victim of mob fury. He could scarcely 
be more than eit^hteen years old. His boyish face 
was pale as death, and was turned with a pleading 
look toward the huge fellow who held the rope, 
and who seemed to be the leader of the mob. He 
had begged hard for his life, and many hearts had 
been touched with pity. 

'* It's a shame, boys, to hang a child like that," 
said one, with a choking voice. 

** It would be an eternal disgrace to the camp to 
allow it," said another. 

Immediately surrounding the prisoner there was 
a growing part}^ anxious to save him, whose inter- 
cessions had made quite a delay already. But the 
mob was bloodthirsty, and loud in its clamor for 
the han(£in<£ to q:o on. 

" Up with him I ' «' What are you waiting for? " 
" Lift him. Bill ! " and similar demands were made 
by a hundred voices at once. 

In the midst of this contention, Stuart, having 
dismounted, pushed his way by main strength 
throuij^h the crowd, and reached the side of the 
prisoner, whose face brightened with hope as the 
tall form of the officer of the law towered above 
him. 

The appearance of the officer seemed to excite 
7 



^8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the mob, and a rush was made for the prisoner, 
amid a storm of oaths and yells. Stuart's eye 
kindled as he cried: "Keep back, you hounds! 
I'll blow out the brains of the first man that touches 
this boy! " 

The front rank of the mob paused, keeping in 
check the yelling crowd behind them. The big 
fellow holding the rope kept his eye on Stuart, 
and seemed for the moment ready to surrender 
the honors of leadership to anybody who was cov- 
etous of the same. The cowardly brute quailed 
before a brave man's glance. He still held the 
rope, but kept his face averted from his intended 
victim. 

Stuart, taking advantage of the momentary si- 
lence, made an earnest appeal to the mob. Point- 
ing to the pale and trembling boy, he reminded 
them that he was only a youth, the mere tool and 
victim of the older criminals who had made their 
escape. To hang him would be simply murder, 
and every one who might have a hand in it would 
be haunted by the crime through life. *' Men, 
you are mad when you talk of hanging a mere boy 
like that. Are you savages? Where is your man- 
hood? Instead of murdering him, it would be 
better to send him back to his poor old mother and 
sisters in the States." 

The central group, at this point, presented a 
striking picture. The poor boy standing bare- 
headed in the sun, looking, in his white garments, 
as if he were already shrouded, gazing wistfully 
around; Stuart holding the crowd at bay, standing 
like a rock, his tall form erect, his face flushed, 
and his eye flashing; the burl}^ leader of the mob, 
rope in hand, his coarse features expressing min- 
gled fear and ferocity; the faces of the rabble, 
come touched with compassion , others turned upon 



THE TRAGEDY AT ALGERINE. 99 

the prisoner threateningly, while the great mass of 
them wore only that look of thoughtless animal 
excitement which makes a mob at once so danger- 
ous and so contemptible a thing — all made a scene 
for an artist. 

Again cries of " Up with him ! " " Hang him ! " 
'* No more palaver!" were raised on the outer 
ranks of the mob, and another rush was made 
toward the prisoner. Stuart's voice and eye again 
arrested the movement. He appealed to their 
manhood and mercy in the most persuasive and 
impassioned manner, and it was evident that his 
appeals were not without effect on some of the 
men nearest to him. Seeing this, several of the 
more determined ruffians, w^ith oaths and cries of 
fur}'-, suddenly rushed forward with such impetu- 
osity that Stuart was borne backward by their 
weight, the rope was grasped by several hands at 
once, and the prisoner w^as jerked with such vio- 
lence as to pull him off his feet. 

At this moment the sound of horse's hoofs was 
heard, and in another instant the reckless dare- 
devil, Billy Worth, mounted on a powerful bay, 
pistol in hand, had opened a lane through the 
crowd, and quick as thought he cut the rope that 
bound the prisoner, and, wdth the assistance of two 
or three friendly hands, lifted him into the saddle 
before him, and galloped off in the direction of 
Sonora. The mob was paralyzed by the audacity 
of this proceeding, and attempted no immediate 
pursuit. The fact is, Worth's reputation as a des- 
perate fighter and sure shot was such that none of 
them had any special desire to get within range of 
his revolver. If his virtues had equaled his cour- 
age, Billy Worth's name would have been one of 
the brightest on the roll of California's heroes. 
At this time he was an attache of the sheriff's 



lOO CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

office, and was always ready for such desperate 
service. He never paused until he had his pris- 
oner safely locked in jail at Sonora. 

The mob dispersed slowly and sullenly, and, as 
the sequel proved, still bent on mischief. 

The next morning the early risers in Sonora 
were thrilled with horror to find the poor boy 
hanging by the neck from a branch of an oak on 
the hillside above the City Hotel. The Algerine 
mob had reororanized, marched into town at dead 
of night, overpowered the jailer, taken out their 
victim, and hung him. By sunrise thousands, 
drawn by the fascination of horror, had gathered 
to the spot. And now that the poor lad was hang- 
ing there dead, there was only pity felt for his 
fate, and detestation of the crime committed by 
his cruel murderers. The body was cut down and 
tenderly buried, women's hands placing flowers 
upon his coffin, and women's tears falling upon 
the cold face. 

A sinorular fact must be added to this narrative. 
The tree on which the boy was hanged was a 
healthy, vigorous young oak, in full leaf. In a 
few days its every leaf had zvithered! This state- 
ment is made on the testimony of respectable liv- 
ing witnesses, whose reputation for veracity is un- 
questioned. The next year the tree put forth its 
buds and leaves as usual. This fact is left to the 
incredulity, superstition, or scientific inquiry of the 
reader. The tree may be still standing, as a me- 
mento of a horrible crime. 



THE BLUE LAKES. 



IT is not strange that the Indians think the Blue 
Lakes are haunted, and that even the white 
man's superstition is not proof aganist the 
weird and solemn influence that broods over 
this spot of almost unearthly beauty. They 
are about ten miles from Lakeport, the beautiful 
county seat of Lake County, which nestles among 
the oaks on the margin of Clear Lake, a body of 
water about thirty miles long and eight miles wide, 
surrounded by scenery so lovely as to make the 
visitor forget for the time that there is any ugliness 
in the world. The first sight of Clear Lake, from 
the highest point of the great range of hills shut- 
ting it in on the south, will never be forgotten by 
any one who has a soul. After winding slowly up, 
up, up the mountain road, a sharp turn is made, 
and you are on the summit. The driver stops his 
panting team, you spring out of the "thorough- 
brace," and look and look. Immediately below 
you is a sea of hills, stretching away to where they 
break against the lofty rampart of the coast range 
on your left, and in front sinking gradually down 
into the valley below. The lake lies beneath you, 
flashing like a mirror in the sunlight, its northern 
shore marked by rugged brown acclivities, the 
nearer side dotted with towns, villages, and farms, 
while " Uncle Sam," the monarch peak of all the 
region, lifts his awful head into the clouds, the 
sparkling waters kissing his feet. I once saw 
*' Uncle Sam" transfigured. It was a day of 
storm. The wind howled among the gorges of the 

(101) 



I02 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

hills, and the dark clouds swept above them in 
mighty masses, the rain falling in fitful and violent 
showers. Pausing at the summit to rest the horse, 
and to get a glance at the scene in its wintry 
aspect, I drew my gray shawl closer, and leaned 
forward and gazed. It was about the middle of 
the afternoon. Suddenly a rift in the clouds west- 
ward let the sunshine through, and, falHng on 
*' Uncle Sam," lo, a miracle! The whole moun- 
tain, from base to summit, softened, blushed, and 
blazed with the prismatic colors. It was a trans- 
figuration. The scene is symbolic. Behind me 
and about me are cloud and tempest, t3''ping the 
humanity of the past and the present with its con- 
flicts and trials and dangers ; before me the glori- 
fied mountain, typing the humanity of the future, 
enveloped in the rainbow of peace, showing that 
the storms are all over. This was my interpreta- 
tion to my friend who sat b}^ my side, but I do not 
insist upon it as canonical. 

The Blue Lakes lie among the hills above Clear 
Lake, and the road leads through dense forests, of 
which the gigantic white oaks are the most striking 
feature. It passes through Scott's Valley, a little 
body of rich land, the terraced hills behind, and 
the lake before. Winding upward, the ascent is 
so gradual that 3^ou do not realize, until you are 
told, that the Blue Lakes are six hundred feet 
above the level of Clear Lake. The lakes are 
three in number, and in very high water they are 
connected. They are each, perhaps, a mile in 
length, and only a few hundred yards in width. 
Their depth is immense. Their waters are a par- 
ticularly bright blue color, and so clear that objects 
are plainly seen many fathoms below^ the surface. 
They are hemmed in by the mountains, the road 
being cut in the side of the overhanging bluff, 



THE BLUE LAKES. IO3 

while on the opposite side bold, rugged, brown 
cliffs rise in almost perpendicular walls from the 
water's edge. A growth of oaks shades the nar- 
row vale between the lakes, and the mountain pine 
and oak, madrona and manzanita, clothe the 
heights. 

There are the Blue Lakes. A solemnity and 
awe steal over you. Speech seems almost profane. 
The very birds seem to hush their singing as they 
flit in silence among the trees. The chatter of a 
gray squirrel has an audacious sound as the bushy- 
tailed little hoodlum dashes across the grade, and 
rushes up a tree. The coo of a turtledove nwny 
off in a distant canyon falls on the ear like the echo 
of a human sorrow that had found soothing, but 
not healing. The sky overhead is as blue as the 
drapery of Guide's Madonna, and there is just a 
hint of a breeze sighing over the still waters, like 
the respiration of a peaceful sleeper. The cliffs 
above the lake duplicate themselves in the water 
beneath with startling lifelikeness, and with the 
spell of the place upon you it would scarcely sur- 
prise you to see unearthly shapes emerge from the 
crystal depths. 

The feeling of superstitious awe is perhaps in- 
creased by the knowledge of the fact that no In- 
dian will go near these lakes. They say a monster 
inhabits the upper lake, and has subterranean com- 
munication with the two lower ones, and of this 
monster the}" have a mortal terror. This terror is 
explained by the following legend : 

Many, many moons ago, when the Ukiah In- 
dians were a great and strong people, a fair-haired 
white man of great stature came from the seashore 
alone, and took up his abode with them. He knew 
many things, and was stronger than any warrior of 
the tribe. The chief took him to his own cam- 



T04 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

poody, and, giving him his daughter for his wife, 
made him his son. She loved the white man, and 
never tired in looking upon his fair face, and into 
his bright blue eyes. But by and by the white 
man, tiring of his Indian bride, and longing to see 
his own people, turned his face again toward the 
sea, and fled. She followed him swiftly and, over- 
taking him at the Blue Lakes, gently reproached 
him for his desertion of her, and entreated him to 
return. They were standing on the rock over- 
hanging the lake on its northern side. He took 
her hand, smiling, and spoke deceitful words; and 
then, suddenly seizing her, hurled her wath all his 
strength headlong into the lake. She sunk to the 
bottom, w^hile the w^hite man resumed his flight, 
and was seen no more. His murdered bride was 
transformed into an evil genius of the lake. The 
long and sinuous outline of a serpentine form would 
be seen on the surface of the water, out of which 
would be lifted at intervals the head of a woman, 
with long, bright hair and sad, filmy, blue eyes, 
into which whosoever looked w^ould die before 
another twelve moons had passed. 

The Indians would go miles out of their way to 
avoid the haunted spot, and more than one white 
man afl^rmed that they had seen the monster of 
Clear Lake. 

One stormy day in the winter of eighteen hun- 
dred and sixty-something I was with a friend on 
my way from Ukiah to Lakeport, by way of the 
Blue Lakes. After swimming Russian River, al- 
ways a bold and rapid stream, but then swollen 
and angry from recent heav}- rains, urging our 
trusty span of horses through the storm, at length 
we reached the grade winding along above the 
lakes. The darkened heavens hung pall-like over 
the waters, the clouds weeping, and the wind 



THE BLUE LAKES. IO5 

moaning. Dense clouds boiled up along the moun- 
tain peaks, veiling their heads in white folds. No 
sign of life was visible. We drove slowly, and 
were silent, feeling the spell of the place. 

" There's the monster I " I suddenly exclaimed. 

''Where?" asked my companion, starting, and 
straining his gaze upon the lake below. 

There it was — a long, dark mass, with serpent- 
like movement, winding its way across the lake. 
It suddenly vanished, without lifting above the 
water the woman's head with the bright hair and 
film}^ eyes. My companion expressed the prosaic 
idea that it w^as a school of fish swimming near the 
surface, but I am sure we saw all there was of the 
monster of the Blue Lakes. 



OLD TUOLUMNE * 



The bearded men in rude attire, 
With nerves of steel and hearts of fire; 
The women few, but fair and sweet. 
Like shadowy visions dim and fleet- 
Again their voices fill my ear, 
As through the past I faintly hear 
And muse o'er buried joy and pain. 
And tread the hills of youth again. 

As speed the torrents, strong and wild, 
Adown the mountains roughly piled 
To find the plain, and there must sink 
In thirsty sands that eager drink- 
So tides of life that early rolled 
Through old Tuolumne's hills of gold, 
Are spread and lost in other lands. 
Or swallowed in the desert sands. 

O davs of youth, O days of power. 
Again ve come for one glad hour. 
To let us taste once more the joy 
That time may dim, but not destroy. 

Ye are not lost! Our pulses thrill 
To hear sweet voices long since still; 
Again hope's air-built castles bright 
Float full before the enchanted sight. 

And as the streams that sink from sight 
In desert sands, and leave the light, 
To the far seas make silent way. 
To swell their tides some distant day — 

So lives that sink and fade from view. 
Like scattered drops of rain and dew. 
Shall gather with the deathless souls 
Where the eternal ocean rolls. 



* Tuolumne County — fondly called "Old Tuolumne " by former residents — 
was in the early days one of the richest and most populous of the mining re- 
gions of California. Here the author lived in the fifties. 



(106) 



BEN. 

BEN was a black man. His African blood 
was unmixed. His black skin was true 
ebony, his lips were as thick as the thick- 
est, his nose was as flat as the flattest, his 
head as woolly as the woolliest. His im- 
mense lips were red, and their redness was not a 
mark of beauty, only giving a grotesque effect to 
a physiognomy no part of which presented the 
least element of the aesthetic. He had neither feet 
nor legs, but was quite a lively pedestrian, shuflling 
his way on his stumps, which w^ere protected by 
thick leather coverings. 

Ben, when I first knew him, kept a bootblack 
stand near the post office in San Francisco. He 
also kept postage stamps on sale. He was talka- 
tive, and all his talk was about religion. His 
patrons listened with wonder or amusement. A 
bootblack that talked religion in the very vortex 
of the seething- sea of San Francisco mammonism 
was a new thing. And then Ben's quaint way of 
speaking lent a special interest to his words, and 
his enjoyment of his one theme was catching. He 
was more given to the relation of experience than 
to polemics. When he touched upon some point 
that moved him he would unconsciously pause in 
his work, his exulting voice arresting the attention 
of many a hurried passer-by, as he spoke of the 
love of Jesus and of the peace of God. 

He slept at night in the little cage of a place in 
which he polished boots and shoes by day. Many 

(107) 



I08 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

a time when I have passed the spot at early dawn, 
on my way to take the first boat for Sacramento, 
I have heard his voice singing a hymn inside. A 
lark's matin song could not be freer or more joy- 
ful. It seemed to be the literal bubbling over of a 
soul full of love and joy. The melody of Ben's 
morning song has followed me many and many a 
mile, by steamboat and by rail. It was the melody 
of a soul that liad learned the sublime secret which 
the milHonaires of the metropolis might well give 
their millions to buy. 

Ben had been a slave in Missouri in the old days 
ante bel/iini. He spoke kindly of his former own- 
ers, who had treated him well. Being liberated, 
he emigrated to CaHfornia, and found his way to 
San Francisco — a w^aif that had floated into a new 
world. 

*' How came you to be so crippled, Ben?" I 
asked him one day as he was lingering on the final 
touches on my second boot, being in one of his 
happiest and most voluble moods. 

" My feet and legs got froze in Mizzoory, sir, 
an' dev had to be cut off." 

" That was a hard trial for you, wasn't it? " 

" No, sir; it didn't hurt me as much as I 'spected 
it would; an' I know'd it was all for de bes', else 
'twouldn't have happened ter me. De loss o' dem 
legs don't keep me from gittin' about, an' my 
health's as good as anybody's. De Lord treats 
me kin', an' mos' everybody has a kin' word for 
Ben. Bless God, he makes me happy wddout 
legs!" 

The plantation patois clave to Ben, and among 
the sounds of the many-tongued multitude of San 
Francisco it had a charm to ears to which it was 
familiar in early days. It was like the song of a 
land bird at sea. 



BEN. 109 

Ben had a great joy when his people bought 
and moved into their house of worship. He gave 
a hundred dollars, which he had laid by for that 
object a dime at a time. It made him happier to 
give that money than to have been remembered in 
Vanderbilt's will. 

" I wanted to give a hundred dollars to help buy 
de house, an' I know de Lord wanted me to do it, 
too, 'cause de customers poured in an' kep' me 
busy all day long. Once in awhile a gentleman 
would han' me a quarter, or half a dollar, an' 
wouldn't wait for change. I knowed what dat 
meant — it was for dat hundred dollars." 

Ben's big, dull, white eyes were not capable of 
much expression, but his broad, black face beamed 
with grateful satisfaction as he gave me this little 
bit of personal history. A trustee of his Church 
told me that they were not willing at first to take 
the money from Ben, but that they saw plainlv it 
would not do to refuse. It was the fulfillment of a 
cherished object that he had carried so long in his 
simple, trusting heart that to have rejected his gift 
would have been cruelty. 

The last time I saw Ben he was working his 
way along a crowded thoroughfare, dragging his 
heavy leathers, his head reaching to the waist of 
the average man. " How are you, Ben? " I said, 
as we met. 

" Bless God, I'm first-rate! " he said, grasping 
my hand warmty, his face brightening, and every 
tooth visible. It w^as clear he had not lost the 
secret. 

Ben w^as not a Methodist ; he was what is popu- 
larly called a Campbellite. 



A YOUTHFUL DESPERADO- 



THERE'S a young chap in the jail over 
there you ought to go and see It's the 
one who killed the two Chinamen on 
Wood's Creek a few weeks ago. He 
goes by the name of Tom Ellis. He is 
scarcely more than a boy, but he is a hard one. 
Maybe you can do him some good." 

This was said to me by one of the sheriff's dep- 
uties, a kind-hearted fellow, but brave as a lion — 
one of those quiet, low-voiced men who do the 
most daring things in a matter-of-course way — a 
man who never made threats and never showed a 
weapon except when he was about to use it with 
deadly effect. 

The next day I went over to see the young mur- 
derer. I was startled at his youthful appearance, 
and struck with his beauty. His features were 
feminine in their delicacy, and his skin was almost 
as soft and fair as a child's. He had dark hair, 
bright blue eyes, and white teeth. He was of me- 
dium size, and was faultless \n fhysique. Though 
heavily ironed, his step was vigorous and springy, 
indicating unusual strength and agility. 

This fair-faced, almost girlish, youth had com- 
mitted one of the most atrocious double murders 
ever known. Approaching two Chinamen who 
were working an abandoned mining claim on the 
creek, he demanded their gold dust, exhibiting at 
the same time a Bowie knife. The Chinamen, 
terrified, dropped their mining tools and fled, pur- 
sued by the young devil, who, fleet of foot, soon 
(110) 



A YOUTHFUL DESPERADO. Ill 

overtook the poor creatures, and with repeated 
stabs in the back cut them down. A passer-by 
found him engaged in rifling their pockets of the 
gold dust, to the value of about twenty dollars, 
which had tempted him to commit the horrid 
crime. 

These were the facts in the case, as brought out 
in the trial. It was also shown that he had borne 
a very bad name, associating with the worst char- 
acters, and being suspected strongly of other crimes 
against life and property. He was convicted and 
sentenced to death. 

This was the man I had come to see. He re- 
ceived me politely, but I made little progress in 
my attempt to turn his thoughts to the subject of 
preparation for death. He allowed me to read the 
Bible in his cell and pray for him, but I could see 
plainly enough that he took no interest in it. I 
left a Bible with him, with the leaves turned down 
to mark such portions of the word of God as would 
be most likely to do him good, and he promised to 
read it, but it was evident he did not do it. For 
weeks I tried in every possible way to reach his 
conscience and sensibilities, but in vain. I asked 
him one day: '* Have you a mother living?" 

*' Yes; she lives in Ohio, and is a member of 
the Baptist Church." 

" Does she know where you are? " 

'' No; she thinks I'm dead, and she will never 
know any better. It's just as well — it would do 
the old lady no good. The name I go by here is 
not my real name — no man in California knows 
my true name." 

Even this chord did not respond. He was as 
cold and hard as ice. I kept up my visits to him, 
and continued my efforts to win him to thoughts 
3uitable to his condition, but he never showed the 



112 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

least sign of penitence or feeling of any kind. He 
was the only human being I have ever met who did 
not have a tender spot somewhere in his nature. 
If he had any such spot, my poor skill failed to dis- 
cover it. 

One day, after I had spent an hour or more with 
him, he said to me: "You mean well in coming 
here to see me, and I'm always glad to see you, as 
I get very lonesome, but there's no use in keeping 
up any deception about the matter. I don't care 
anything about religion, and all your talk on that 
subject is wasted. But if you could help me to 
get out of this jail, so that I could kill the man 
whose evidence convicted me, I would thank you. 
Damn him ! I would be willing to die if I could 
kill him first! " 

As he spoke his eye glittered like a serpent's, 
and I felt that I was in the presence of a fiend. 
From this time on there was no disguise on his 
part; he thirsted for blood, and hated to die chiefly 
because it cut him off from his revenge. He did 
not deny the commission of the murders, and 
cared no more for it than he would for the shoot- 
ing of a rabbit. As a psychological study he pro- 
foundly interested me, and I sought to learn more 
of his history, that I might know how much of his 
fiendishness was due to organic tendency, and how 
much to evil association. But he would tell noth- 
ing of his former life, and I was left to conjecture 
as to what were the influences that had so com- 
pletely blasted every bud and blossom of good in 
one so young. And he was so handsome ! 

He made several desperate attempts to break 
jail, and was loaded down with extra irons and put 
under special guard. The night before his execu- 
tion he slept soundlv, and ate a hearty breakfast 
next morning. At the gallows he showed no fear 



A YOUTHFUL DESPERADO. II3 

or emotion of any kind. He was brooding on his 
revenge to the last moment. *' It is well for Short 
that I didn't get out of this — I would like to live 
long enough to kill him!" were about the last 
words he uttered, in a sort of soliloquizing way. 
The black cap was drawn over his fair face, and 
without a quiver of the nerves or the least tremor 
of the pulse he was launched into the world of 
spirits, the rabble looking on with mingled curios- 
ity, awe, and pity. 



NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO. 



NORTH BEACH, in its gentle mood, is as 
quiet as a Quaker maiden, and as lovely; 
but when fretted by the rude sea wind it 
is like a virago in her tantrums. I have 
looked upon it at the close of a bright, 
clear day, fascinated by the changing glories of a 
gorgeous sunset. The still ships seemed asleep 
upon the placid waters. Above the Golden Gate 
hung a drapery of burning clouds, almost too 
bright for the naked eye. Tamalpais,* towering 
above the Marin hills, wrapped in his evening robe 
of royal purple, sat like a king on his throne. The 
islands in sight, sunlit and calm, seemed to be 
dreaming in the soft embrace of the blue waters. 
Above the golden glow of the breez}^ Contra Costa 
hills the sk}^ blushed rosy red, as if conscious of its 
own charms. As the sun sunk into the Pacific in 
a blaze of splendor, the bugle of Fort Alcatraz, 
pealing over the waters, told that the day was 
done. And then the scene gradually changed. 
The cloud fires that blazed above the Gate of Gold 
died out, the purple of Tamalpais deepened into 
blackness, in the thickening twilight the sunlit 
islands faded from sight, the rose-tinted sky turned 
into sober gray, the stars came out one by one, 
and a night of beauty followed a day of bright- 



*A lofty peak of the coast range that shoots its bare summit 
high into tlie sky north of the bay, and within a few miles of 
the Golden Gate, from which the view is one of marvelous 
scope and surpassing beauty. 

(114) 



NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO. II5 

ness. Many a time from my bay window, on such 
evenings as this, have I seen young men and 
maidens walking side by side, or hand in hand, 
along the beach, w^hispering words that only the 
sea might hear, and uttering vows that only the 
stars might witness. Here I have seen the weary 
man of business linger as if he were loath to leave 
a scene so quiet and go back to the din and rush 
and worry of the city. And pale, sad-faced women 
in black have come alone to weep by the seaside, 
and have gone back with the traces of fresh tears 
upon their cheeks and the light of renewed hope 
in tlieir eyes. On bright mornings, new-married 
couples, climbing the hill whose western declivity 
overlooks the Golden Gate and the vast Pacific, 
have felt that the immensity and calm of the ocean 
were emblematic of the serene and immeasurable 
happiness they had in each other. They might 
have remembered that even that Pacific sea is 
swept by storms, and that beneath its quiet waters 
lies many a noble ship, wrecked on its way to 
port. But they felt no fear, for there is no ship- 
wreck of true love, human or divine; it always 
survives the storm. 

North Beach, in its stormy mood, had also its 
fascination for the storm-tossed and the desolate 
and the despairing. It was hither that Ralston 
hurried on that fatal day when the crash came. 
His death was like his life. He was a strong 
swimmer, but he ventured too far. The wind 
sweeping in through the Golden Gate chill and 
angry, the white-capped waters of the bay in wild 
unrest, the gathering fog darkening the sky — were 
all symbolic of the days of struggle and the nights 
of anguish that preceded the final tragedy. He 
died struggling. If he had come out of that wrestle 
with the sea alive, he would have been on his feet 



Il6 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

to-day ; for he embodied in himself the energy, the 
dash, the invincible courage of the true Californian. 
Ralston did not commit suicide. He was not a 
man of that type. 

Sitting in my bay window above the beach one 
stormy evening about sunset, my attention was 
arrested by the movements of a man sitting on the 
rocks in the edge of the water, where the spray 
drenched his person every time a wave broke 
against the shore. Suddenly he took a pistol from 
his pocket, placed the muzzle against his head, and 
fired. I sprang to my feet as he tumbled forward 
into the water, and rushed down the long steps, 
and reached the spot just as a incoming wave bore 
him back to the beach. Dragging him out of the 
water, it was found that he was still breathing and 
had a faint pulse. The blood was oozing from an 
ugly bullet wound back of his right ear — the ball 
had struck the bone and slightly glanced. Brandy 
was brought, which he swallowed in large quanti- 
ties; his pulse grew quicker and stronger, and, 
looking around upon the curious and pitying group 
that had gathered about him, he seemed suddenly 
to comprehend the whole situation. With a des- 
perate effort he rose to his feet, exclaiming : ' * Why 
didn't you let me alone? If you had, it would all 
have been over now. Am I doomed to live against 
my will? The very sea refuses me a grave ! " 

I made some remark, with the view to calm and 
encourage him. 

" You mean well, and I ought to thank you, sir; 
but you have done me an ill turn. I want to die 
and get out of it all." 

** What is the trouble, my friend?" I inquired, 
the question prompted by pity and curiosity. 

He turned suddenly, stared at me a moment, 
and said fiercely: ** Never mind what my trouble 



NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO. II7 

is. It is what death only can relieve. Why didn't 
you let me die? " 

He was a heavy-set man of fifty, with iron-gray 
whiskers, a good, open, intelligent face, and neatly 
dressed in a suit of gray cloth. 

He reeled as he spoke, and would have fallen 
had he not been supported by kind hands. He 
was taken to the hospital, where the bullet was 
extracted from his head, and he got well. Who 
he was, and what was his story, were never found 
out. He kept his secret. 

About sunrise one morning, looking out of my 
window, I saw a crowd huddled around some ob- 
ject on the beach. Their subdued behavior sug- 
gested a tragedy. The North Beach rabble, in its 
ordinary mood, is rather noisy and demonstrative. 
The hoodlum reaches his perfection here. The 
hoodlum is a young Californian in the intermedi- 
ate stage between a wharf rat and a desperado, 
combining all the bad qualities of both. He is 
dishonest, lewd, insolent, and unspeakably vulgar. 
He glories in his viciousness, and his swagger is 
inimitable. There is but one thing about him that 
has the semblance of a virtue, and that is his cour- 
ageous fidelity to his fellow-hoodlums. He will 
defend one of his kind to the death in a street fight, 
or swear to anything to help him in a court of jus- 
tice. This element is usually largely represented 
in any popular gathering at North Beach, but they 
were not numerous at that early hour. They run 
late at night, and are not early risers. But the 
women that sold beer on the flat, the men that 
drove dirt carts, the fishermen who fished in the 
bay, and the crowd of fellows that lived nobody 
knew where or how, that appear as by magic 
when an exciting event calls them forth, were 
all there as I made my way through the throng 



Il8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

and reached the object that had drawn them to the 
spot. 

It was a man hanging by his neck from the 
highest tier of a lot of damaged hay bales that had 
been unloaded on the beach. He had come out 
there in the night, taken a piece of hay rope, ad- 
justed it to his neck with great skill, fastened it to 
a topmost bale of hay, and then leaped into eter- 
nity. It was a horrid spectacle. The man was a 
Frenchman, who had slept two nights in a recess 
of the hay pile. The popular verdict was insanity 
or starvation. From a look at the ghastty face and 
poor, thin frame, with its tattered garments flutter- 
ing in the breeze, you might think it was both. 
The previous night had been colder than usual; 
perhaps hanging was to his mind a shorter and 
easier death than freezing. Nobody knows. He 
too kept his secret. 

Almost opposite my bay window was a large 
rock, which was nearly covered by the tide at high 
water, and over which the surf broke with great 
violence when a north wind drove the waters upon 
the beach. The North Beach breakers sometimes 
run so high as to send their spray over the high 
embankment of Bay Street, and their thunder 
makes sublime music on a stormy night. One day 
when the bay was lashed into anger by a strong 
wind from the northwest, and the surf was rolling 
in heavily, a slender young girl was seen hurrying 
along the beach with downcast look and a veil 
over her face. Without pausing she waded through 
the surf and climbed the rock, and, lifting her veil 
for a moment and disclosing a pale, beautiful face 
as she cast a look at the sky, she threw herself 
into the sea, her veil floating away as she sunk. A 
rush of the waves dashed her body back against 
the rock, and, as it swayed to and fro, fragments 



NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO. II9 

of her dress were visible. A passing cartman, who 
had witnessed her wild leap, plunged into the 
water, and with some difficulty caught the body 
and brought it to the shore. 

'' Poor thing! She's only a child," said a red- 
faced, stout woman, who was the mistress of a no- 
torious beer house on the flat, but whose coarse 
features were softened into a pitying expression as 
she looked upon the fair, girlish face and slender 
form lying at her feet, the blood running from two 
or three gashes cut upon her temple and forehead 
by the sharp rocks. 

*'God pity the child I She's still alive," said 
another woman of the same class, as she stooped 
down and put her hand upon the girl's heart. 

Lifting her tenderly in their strong arms, she 
was carried into a house close at hand, and by the 
use of proper means brought back to conscious- 
ness. What were her thoughts w^hen she opened 
her eyes and in the half-darkened room looked 
around upon the rough denizens of the flat, I know 
not. Her first thought may have been that she had 
awaked in the world so awfully pictured by the 
grand and gloomy Florentine. Hiding her face 
wath her hands, she gave way to an agony of grief. 
Her secret was the old story. Though but a 
schoolgirl, she had loved, sinned, and despaired, 
her weakness and folly culminating in attempted 
self-murder. Beyond this no more will be tola. 
I will keep her secret, having reason to hope that 
the young life which she tried to throw away at 
North Beach is not wholly blighted. She is 
scarcely out of her teens now. 

Here a famous gambler, Tom H , came in 

the early part of an afternoon, and lying down at 
the foot of the huge sand hill above the beach, 
shot himself throu<rh the breast. A boatman found 



I20 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

him lying on his back, the blood streaming from 
the wound and crimsoning the white sand. It was 
a woman that caused him thus to throw up the 
game of life. He was a handsome fellow, muscu- 
lar, clean-limbed, and full-chested, but it was a 
sad spectacle as they drove him away in an open 
wagon, the blood dripping along the street, the 
poor fellow gasping and moaning so piteously. 
Recovering consciousness that night, he tore away 
the bandages with which his wound had been 
stanched, declaring he would die, for " the game 
was up." Before daybreak next morning he had 
his wish, and died. 

Above us, on the hillside, lived a family consist- 
ing of the mother and father and three children. 
One of the children was a bright, active little fel- 
low, five or six years old, who had the quickest 
foot and merriest laugh of all the little people that 
were in the habit of gathering on the beach to pick 
up shells, or play in the moist sand, or toy with 
the waves as they ended in a fringe of foam at 
their feet. On a windy day the little fellow^ had 
gone down to the beach, and amused himself by 
watching the waves as they broke upon the em- 
bankment of the new street that was rising out of 
the sea. At one point there was a break in the 
embankment, leaving a passage lor the waters that 
ebbed and flowed with the tide. A narrow plank 
was thrown across the place for foot passengers. 
The little boy started to cross it just as a huge 
wave rolled in from the sea, and was struck by it 
and carried by its force into the deep water be- 
yond. His little playmates, paralyzed with terror, 
instead of giving the alarm at once, stood watch- 
ing the spot where he went down. But at last the 
alarm was given, and a score of men plunged into 
the water and began to search for the child's body. 



NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO. 121 

A crowd gathered on the bank, looking on with 
the fascination that so singularly attracts men and 
women to the tragic and the horrible. At length 
a strong swimmer and good diver found the little 
body, and brought it to the shore. It was cold 
and stark, the eyes staring, the sunny curls matted 
over the marble brow, and his little jacket stained 
with the mud. One of the men took him in his 
arms, and, followed by the crowd, slowly ascended 
the hill. The mother was standing at the gate, 
wondering what such a procession meant, no one 
having had the presence of mind to prepare her 
for the blow. When she caught sight of the little 
face resting on the shoulder of the rough but kind- 
hearted man who carried the dead child, she 
shrieked, as she fell to the earth: " O God! My 
child I my child! " 

The fatal spot was where the poor mother could 
see it every time she looked from her door or win- 
dow, and I was glad when the place was filled up. 
There is yet another aspect of North Beach that 
lingers in memory. I have lain awake during 
many a long night of bodily pain and mental an- 
guish, listening to the plash of the waves as they 
broke gently upon the beach just below, and the 
music of the billows soothed my tortured nerves, 
and the voice of the mighty sea spoke to my troub- 
led soul, as the voice of Him whose footsteps are 
upon the great waters, and whose paths are in the 
seas. And it was from our cottage at North Beach 
that we bore to the grave our child of suffering, 
our Paul, whose twenty summers were all clouded 
by affliction, but beautiful in goodness, and whose 
resting place beside another little grave near San 
Jose makes us turn many a wistful look toward 
the sunset. 



MY MINING SPECULATION. 



1 BELIEVE the Lord has put me in the way of 
making a competenc}^ for my old age," said 
the dear old Doctor, as he seated himself in 
the armchair reserved for him at the cottage at 
North Beach. 

*'How?" I asked. 

'' I met a Texas man to-day, who told me of the 
discovery of an immensely rich silver mining dis- 
trict in Deep Spring Valley, Mono County, and 
he says he can get me in as one of the owners." 

I laughingly made some remark expressive of 
incredulity. The honest and benignant face of 
the old Doctor showed that he was a little nettled. 

'* I have made full inquiry, and am sure this is 
no mere speculation. The stock will not be put 
upon the market, and will not be assessable. They 
propose to make me a trustee, and the owners, 
limited in number, will have entire control of the 
property. But I will not be hasty in the matter. I 
will make it a subject of prayer for twenty-four 
hours, and then if there be no adverse indications 
I will go on with it." 

The next day I met the broad-faced Texan, and 
was impressed by him as the old Doctor had been. 

It seemed a sure thing. An old prospector had 
been equipped and sent out by a few gentlemen, 
and he had found outcroppings of silver in a range 
of hills extendinjj^ not less than three miles. As- 
says had been made of the ores, and they were 
found to be very rich. All the timber and water 
power of Deep Spring Valley had been taken up 
for the company under the general and local pre- 
emption and mining laws. It was a big thing. 
(122) 



MY MINING SPECULATION. 1 23 

The beauty of the whole arrangement was that no 
" mining sharps" were to be let in; we were to 
manage it ourselves, and reap all the profits. 

We went into it, the old Doctor and I, feeling 
deeply grateful to the broad-faced Texan who had 
so kindly given us the chance. I was made a trus- 
tee, and began to have a decidedly business feeling 
as such. At the meetings of "the board" my 
opinions were frequently called for, and were given 
with great gravity. The money was paid for the 
shares I had taken, and the precious evidences of 
ownership were carefully put in a place of safety. 
A mill was built near the richest of the claims, and 
the assays were good. There were delays, and 
more money was called for, and sent up. The 
assays were still good, and the reports from our 
superintendent were glowing. '' The biggest thing 
in the history of California mining," he w^rote; 
and when the secretary read his letter to the board, 
there was a happy expression on each face. 

At this point I began to be troubled. It seemed, 
from reasonable ciphering, that I should soon be a 
millionaire. It made me feel solemn and anxious. 
I lay awake at night, praying that I might not be 
spoiled by my good fortune. The scriptures that 
speak of the deceitfulness of riches were called to 
mind, and I rejoiced with trembhng. Many be- 
neficent enterprises were planned, principally in 
the line of endowing colleges and pa3nng church 
debts. (I had had an experience in this fine.) 
There were further delays, and more money was 
called for. The ores were rebellious, and our 
" process " did not suit them. Fryborg and Deep 
Spring Valley were not the same. A new super- 
intendent — one that understood rebellious ores — 
was employed at a higher salary. He reported 
that all was right, and that we might expect " big 



124 



CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 



news" in a few days, as he proposed to crush 
about seventy tons of the best rock " by a new 
and improved process." 

The board held frequent meetings, and in view 
of the nearness of great results did not hesitate to 
meet the requisitions made for further outlays of 
money. They resolved to pursue a prudent but 
vigorous policy in developing the vast property 
when the mill should be fairly in operation. 

All this time I felt an undercurrent of anxiety 
lest I might sustain spiritual loss by my sudden 
accession to great wealth, and continued to fortify 
myself with good resolutions. 

As a matter of special caution, I sent for a par- 
cel of the ore, and had a private assay made of it. 
The assay was good. 

The new superintendent notified us that on a 
certain date we might look for a report of the re- 
sult of the first great crushing and clean up of the 
seventy tons of rock. The day came. On Kearny 
Street I met one of the stockholders, a careful 
Presbyterian brother, who loved money. He had 
a solemn look, and was walking slowly, as if in 
deep thought. Lifting his eyes as we met, he saw 
me, and spoke: "// is lead!^^ 

*' What is lead?" 

** Our silver mine in Deep Spring Valley." 

Yes; from the seventy tons of rock we got 
eleven dollars in silver, and about fifty pounds of 
as good lead as was ever molded into bullets. 

The board held a meeting the next evening. It 
was a solemn one. The fifty-pound bar of lead 
was placed in the midst, and was eyed reproach- 
fully. I resigned my trusteeship, and they saw me 
not again. That was my first and last mining 
speculation. It failed somehow — but the assays 
were all very good. 



DICK. 

DICK was a Californian. We made his 
acquaintance in Sonora about a month 
before Christmas, Anno Do^nini 1855. 
This is the way it happened: 

At the request of a number of famiHes, 
the lady who presided in the curious Httle parson- 
age near the church on the hillside had started a 
school for little girls. The public schools might 
do for the boys, but were too mixed for their sis- 
ters — so they thought. Boys could rough it — they 
were a rough set, anyhow — but the girls must be 
reared according to the traditions of the old times 
and the old homes. That was the view taken of 
the matter then, and from that day to this the 
average California girl has been superior to the 
average California boy. The boy gets his bias 
from the street; the girl, from her mother at home. 
The boy plunges into the life that surges around 
him; the girl only feels the touch of its waves as 
they break upon the embankments of home. The 
boy gets more of the father; the girl gets more of 
the mother. This may explain their relative supe- 
riority. The school for girls was started on con- 
dition that it should be free, the proposed teacher 
refusing all compensation. That part of the ar- 
rangement was a failure, for at the end of the 
first month ever}^ little girl brought a handful of 
money, and laid it on the teacher's desk. It must 
have been a concerted matter. That quiet, unself- 
ish woman had suddenly become a money-maker 
in spite of herself. (Use was found for the coin 

(125) 



126 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in the course of events.) The school was opened 
with a Psalm, a prayer, and a little song in which 
the sweet voices of the little Jewish, Spanish, Ger- 
man, Irish, and American maidens united heartily. 
Dear children ! they are scattered now. Some of 
them have died, and some of them have met with 
what is worse than death. There was one bright 
Spanish girl, slender, graceful as a willow, with 
the fresh Castilian blood mantling her cheeks, her 
bright eyes beaming with mischief and affection. 
She was a beautiful child, and her winning ways 
made her a pet in the little school. But surrounded 
as the bright, beautiful girl was, Satan had a mort- 
gage on her from her birth, and her fate was too 
dark and sad to be told in these pages. She in- 
herited evil condition, and perhaps evil blood, and 
her evil life seemed to be inevitable. Poor child 
of sin, whose very beauty was thy curse, let the 
curtain fall upon thy fate and name ; we leave thee 
in the hands of the pitying Christ, who hath said, 
"Where little is given little will be required." 
Little was given thee in the way of opportunity, 
for it was a mother's hand that bound thee with 
the chains of evil. 

Among the children that came to that remark- 
able academy on the hill was little Mary Kinneth, 
a thin, delicate child, with mild blue eyes, flaxen 
hair, a peach complexion, and the blue veins on 
her temples that are so often the sign of delicacy 
of organization and the presage of early death. 
Mike Kinneth, her father, was a drinking Irishman, 
a good-hearted fellow when sober, but pugnacious 
and disposed to beat his wife when drunk. The 
poor woman came over to see me one day. She 
had been crying, and there was an ugly bruise on 
her cheek. 

" Your Riverence will excuse me," she said, 



DICK. 



1-7 



courtesying, '* but I wish you would come over 
and spake a word to me husband. Mike's a kind, 
good craythur except when he is dhrinkin', but 
then he is the very Satan himself.' 

*' Did he give you that bruise on your face, Mrs. 

Kinneth?" j • i u 

'* Yis. He came home last night mad with the 
whisky, and was breakin' ivery thing in the house. 
I tried to stop him, an' thin he bate me— O I he 
never did that before I My heart is broke ! ' ' Here 
the poor woman broke down and cried, hiding her 
face in her apron. " Little Mary was asleep, an' 
she waked up frightened an' cryin' to see her 
father in such a way. Seein' the child seemed to 
sober him a little, an' he stumbled onto the bed, 
an' fell asleep. He was always kind to the child, 
dhrunk or sober. An' there is a good hearty in 
him if he will only stay away from the dhrink." 

" Would he let me talk to him? " 

" Yis; we belong to the old Church, but there 
is no priest here now, an' the kindness yer lady 
has shown to little Mary has softened his heart to 
ye both. An' I think he feels a little sick and 
ashamed this mornin', an' he will listen to kind 
words now if iver." 

I went to see Mike, and found him half sick and 
in a penitent mood. He called me " Father Fitz- 
gerald," and treated me with the utmost polite- 
ness and deference. I talked to him about little 
Mary, and his warm Irish heart opened to me at 



once 



*' She is a good child, your Riverence, and shame 
on the father that woukl hurt or disgrace her! " 
The tears stood in Mike's eyes as he spoke the 

words. 

"All the trouble comes from the whisky. Why 

not give it up ? " 



128 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

'' By the help of God I will ! " said Mike, grasp- 
ing my hand with energy. 

And he did. I confess that the result of my 
visit exceeded my hopes. Mike kept away from 
the saloons, worked steadity, little Mary had no 
lack of new shoes and neat frocks, and the Kin- 
neth family were happy in a humble way. Mike 
always seemed glad to see me, and greeted me 
warmly. 

One morning about the last of November there 
was a knock at the door of the little parsonage. 
Opening the door, there stood Mrs. Kinneth with 
a turkey under her arm. 

" Christmas will soon be coming, an' I've 
brought ye a turkey for your kindness to little 
Mar}^ an' your good talk to Mike. He has not 
touched a dhrop since the blissed day ye spake to 
him. Will ye take the turkey, and my thanks 
widit?" 

The turkey was politely and smilingl}^ accepted, 
and Mrs. Kinneth went away looking mightily 
pleased. 

I extemporized a little coop for our turkey. 
Having but little mechanical ingenuity, it was a 
difficult job, but it resulted more satisfactority than 
did my attempt to make a door for the miniature 
kitchen attached to the parsonage. My object was 
to nail some cross pieces on some plain boards, 
hang it on hinges, and fasten it on the inside by a 
leather strap attached to a nail. The model in my 
mind was, as the reader sees, of the most simple 
and primitive pattern. I spent all my leisure time 
for a week at work on that door. I spoiled the 
lumber, I blistered my hands, I broke several dol- 
lars' worth of carpenter's tools, for which I had to 
pay, and — then I hired a man to make that door! 
This was my last effort in that line of things, ex- 




*^ Soiitctiines he xvould accompany me in a pastoral visit. 

(129) 



DICK. 131 

cepting the turkey coop, which was the very last. 
It lasted four days, at the end of which time it just 
gave way all over, and caved in. Fortunately, it 
was no longer needed. Our turkey would not leave 
us. The parsonage fare suited him, and he stayed 
and throve and made friends. 

We named him Dick. He is the hero of this 
sketch. Dick was intelligent, sociable, and had a 
good appetite. He would eat anything, from a 
crust of bread to the pieces of candy that the 
schoolgirls would give him as they passed. He 
became as gentle as a dog, and would answ^er to 
his name. He had the freedom of the town, and 
went where he pleased, returning at meal times, 
and at night to roost on the western end of the 
kitchen roof. He would eat from our hands, look- 
ing at us with a sort of human expression in his 
shiny eyes. If he were a hundred yards away, 
all we had to do was to go to the door and call 
out, " Dick! Dick! " once or twice, and here he 
would come, stretching his long legs, and saying, 
"Oot, oot, oot" (is that the way to spell it?). 
He got to like going about with me. He would go 
wnth me to the post office, to the market, and some- 
times he w^ould accompany me in a pastoral visit. 
Dick was well-known and popular. Even the bad 
boys of the town did not throw stones at him. His 
ruling passion was the love of eating. He ate be- 
tween meals. He ate all that w^as offered to him. 
Dick was a pampered turkey, and made the most 
of his good luck and popularity. He w^as never 
in low spirits, and never disturbed, except when a 
dog came about him. He disliked dogs, and 
seemed to distrust them. 

The days rolled by, and Dick was fat and happy. 
It was the day before Christmas. We had asked 
two bachelors to take Christmas dinner wath us, 



132 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

having room and chairs for just two more persons. 
(One of our four chairs was called a stool. It had 
a bottom and three legs, one of which was a little 
shaky, and no back. ) There was a constraint upon 
us both all day. I knew what was the matter, but 
said nothing. About four o'clock in the afternoon 
Dick's mistress sat down by me, and, after a pause, 
remarked: "Do you know that to-morrow is 
Christmas Day? " 

** Yes, I know it." Another pause. I had noth- 
ing to say just then. 

'* Well, if — if — if anything is to be done about 
that turkey, it is time it were done." 

*' Do you mean Dick? " 

** Yes," with a little quiver in her voice. 

'* I understand you — you mean to kill him — poor 
Dick! the only pet we ever had." 

She broke right down at this, and began to cry. 

** What is the matter here?" said our kind, 

energetic neighbor, Mrs. T , who came in to 

pay us one of her informal visits. She was from 
Philadelphia, and, though a gifted woman, with a 
wide range of reading and observation of human 
life, was not a sentimentalist. She laughed at the 
weeping mistress of the parsonage, and, going to 
the back door, she called out: " Dick! Dick! " 

Dick, who was taking the air high- up on the 
hillside, came at the call, making long strides, and 
sounding his " Oot, oot, oot," which was the for- 
mula by which he expressed all his emotions, vary- 
ing only the tone. 

Dick, as he stood with outstretched neck and a 
look of expectation in his honest eyes, w^as scooped 
up by our neighbor, and carried off down the hill 
in the most summary manner. 

In about an hour Dick was brought back. He 
was dressed. He was also stuffed. 



THE DIGGERS. 



THE Digger Indian holds a low place in the 
scale of humanity. He is not intelligent, 
he is not handsome, he is not very brave. 
He stands near the foot of his class, and I 
fear he is not likely to go up any higher. 
It is more likely that the places that know him now 
will soon know him no more, for the reason that 
he seems readier to adopt the bad white man's 
whisky and diseases than the good white man's 
morals and religion. Ethnologically he has given 
rise to much conflicting speculation, with which I 
will not trouble the gentle reader. He has been in 
California a long time, and he does not know that 
he was ever anywhere else. His pedigree does not 
trouble him ; he is more concerned about getting 
something to eat. It is not because he is an agri- 
culturist that he is called a Digger, but because he 
grabbles for wild roots and has a general fond- 
ness for dirt. I said he was not handsome, and 
when we consider his rusty, dark-brown color, his 
heavy features, fishy black eyes, coarse, black 
hair, and clumsy gait, nobody will dispute the 
statement. But one Digger is uglier than another, 
and an old squaw caps the climax. 

The first Diofsrer I ever saw was the best-look- 
ing. He had learned a little English, and loafed 
around the mining camps, picking up a meal w^here 
he could get it. He called himself *' Captain 
Charley," and, like a true native American, was 
proud of his title. If it was self-assumed, he was 

(133) 



134 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

still following the precedent set by a vast host of 
captains, majors, colonels, and generals, who never 
wore a uniform or hurt anybody. He made his 
appearance at the little parsonage on the hillside 
in Sonora one day, and, thrusting his bare head 
into the door, he said, *' Me Cappin Charley," 
tapping his chest complacently as he spoke. 

Returning his salutation, I w^aited for him to 
speak again. 

" You got grub — coche came? " he asked, mix- 
ing his Spanish and English. 

Some food was given him, which he snatched 
rather eagerly, and began to eat at once. It was 
evident that Capt. Charley had not breakfasted 
that morning. He w^as a hungry Indian, and when 
he got through his meal there was no reserve of 
rations in the unique repository of dishes and food 
which has been mentioned heretofore in these 
*' Sketches." Peering about the premises, Capt. 
Charley made a discovery. The modest little par- 
sonage stood on a steep incline, the upper side 
resting on the red, gravelly earth, while the lower 
side was raised three or four feet from the ground. 
The vacant space underneath had been used b}^ 
our several bachelor predecessors as a receptacle 
for cast-off clothing. Malone, Lockley, and Evans 
had thus disposed of their discarded apparel, and 
Drury Bond, and one or two other miners, had 
also added to the treasures that caught the eye of 
the inquisitive Digger. It was a museum of sarto- 
rial curiosities — seedy and ripped broadcloth coats, 
vests, and pants, flannel mining shirts of gay 
colors and of different degrees of wear and tear, 
linen shirts that looked like battle flags that had 
been through the war, and old shoes and boots of 
all sorts, from the high rubber waterproofs used by 
miners to the ragged slippers that had adorned the 



THE i)IG(ji<:rs. 135 

feet of the lonely single parsons whose names are 
written above. 

*' Me take um? " asked Capt. Charley, pointing 
to the treasure he had discovered. 

Leave was given, and Capt. Charley lost no 
time in taking possession of the coveted goods. 
He chuckled to himself as one article after another 
was drawn forth from the pile, which seemed to 
be almost inexhaustible. When he had gotten all 
out and piled up together, it was a rare-looking 
sight. 

'''•Mucho biienol'' exclaimed Capt. Charley, as 
he proceeded to array himself in a pair of trousers. 
Then a shirt, then a vest, and then a coat were 
put on. And then another, and another, and yet 
another suit were donned in the same order. He 
was fast becoming a "big Indian" indeed. We 
looked on and smiled, sympathizing with the evi- 
dent delight of our visitor in his superabundant 
wardrobe. He was in full dress, and enjoyed it. 
But he made a failure at one point: his feet were 
too large, or were not the right shape, for white 
men's boots or shoes. He tried several pairs, but 
his huge flat foot would not enter them, and finally 
he threw down the last one tried by him with a 
Spanish exclamation not fit to be printed in these 
pages. That language is a musical one, but its 
oaths are very harsh in sound. A battered " stove- 
pipe " hat was found among the spoils turned over 
to Capt. Charley. Placing it on his head jauntily, 
he turned to us, saying, ^'Adios!'' and went strut- 
ting down the street, the picture of gratified vanity. 
His appearance on Washington Street, the main 
thoroughfare of the place, thus gorgeously and 
abundantly arrayed, created a sensation. It was 
as good as a *' show" to the jolly miners, always 
ready to be amused. Capt. Charley was known to 



136 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

most of them, and they had a kindly feeling for the 
good-natured " fool Injun," as one of them called 
him in my hearing. 

The next Digger I noticed was of the gentler 
(but in this case not lovelier) sex. She was an old 
squaw who was in mourning. The sign of her 
grief was the black adobe mud spread over her 
face. She sat all day motionless and speechless, 
gazing up into the sky. Her grief was caused by 
the death of a child, and her sorrowful look showed 
that she had a mother's heart. Poor, degraded 
creature ! What were her thoughts as she sat 
there looking so pitifully up into the silent, far-off 
heavens? All the livelong day she gazed thus fix- 
edly into the sky, taking no notice of the passers- 
by, neither speaking, eating, nor drinking. It was 
a custom of the tribe, but its peculiar significance 
is unknown to me. 

It was a great night at an adjoining camp when 
the old chief died. It was made the occasion of a 
fearful orgy. Dry wood and brush were gathered 
into a huge pile, the body of the dead chief was 
placed upon it, and the mass set on fire. As the 
flames blazed upward with a roar, the Indians, 
several hundred in number, broke forth into wild 
wailings and bowlings, the shrill soprano of the 
women rising high above the din, as they marched 
around the burning pyre. Fresh fuel was supplied 
from time to time, and all nii^ht long the flames 
lighted up the surrounding hills, which echoed with 
the shouts and howls of the savages. It was a 
touch of Pandemonium. At dawn there was noth- 
ing left of the dead chief but ashes. The mourn- 
ers took up their line of march toward the Stanis- 
laus River, the squaws bearing their papooses on 
their backs, the " bucks " leading the way. 

The Digger believes in a future life, and in 



THE DIGGERS. 1 37 

future rewards and punishments. Good Indians 
and bad Indians are subjected to the same ordeal 
at death. Each one is rewarded according to his 
deeds. 

The disembodied soul comes to a wide, turbid 
river, whose angry waters rush on to an unknown 
destination, roaring and foaming. From high 
banks on either side of the stream is stretched a 
pole, smooth and small, over which he is required 
to walk. Upon the result of this fost mortein 
Blondinizing his fate depends. If he was in life a 
very good Indian, he goes over safely, and finds on 
the other side a paradise, where the skies are 
cloudless, the air balmy, the flowers brilliant in 
color and sweet in perfume, the springs many and 
cool, the deer plentiful and fat. In this fair clime 
there are no bad Indians, no briers, no snakes, no 
grizzly bears. Such is the paradise of good Diggers. 
The Indian who w^as in life a mixed character, 
not all good or bad, but made up of both, starts 
across the fateful river, gets on very well until he 
reaches about hallwav over, when his head be- 
comes dizzy, and he tumbles into the boiling flood 
below. He swims for his Hfe. (Every Indian on 
earth can swim, and he does not forget the art in 
the world of spirits.) Buffeting the waters, he is 
carried swiftly down the rushing current, and at 
last makes the shore, to find a country which, like 
his former life, is a mixture of good and bad. 
Some days are fair, and others are rainy and chilly; 
flowers and brambles grow^ together; there are 
some springs of water, but they are few, and not 
all cool and sweet; the deer are few and shy and 
lean, and grizzly bears roam the hills and valle3's. 
This is the Limbo of the moderately wicked Dig- 
ger. The very bad Indian, placing his feet upon the 
attenuated bridge of doom, makes a few steps for- 



138 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

ward, stumbles, falls into the whirling waters be- 
low, and is swept downward with fearful velocity. 
At last, with desperate struggles, he half swims 
and is half washed ashore on the same side from 
which he started, to find a dreary land where the 
sun never shines, and the cold rains always pour 
down from the dark skies, where the water is 
brackish and foul, where no flowers ever bloom, 
where leagues may be traversed without seeing a 
deer, and grizzly bears abound. This is the hell 
of very bad Indians, and a very bad one it is. The 
worst Indians of all, at death, are transformed into 
grizzly bears. 

The Digger has a good appetite, and he is not 
particular about his eating. He likes grasshoppers, 
clover, acorns, roots, and fish. The flesh of a 
dead mule, horse, cow, or hog does not come 
amiss to him — I mean the flesh of such as die nat- 
ural deaths. He eats what he can get, and all he 
can get. In the grasshopper season he is fat and 
flourishinor. In the suburbs of Sonora I came one 
day upon a lot of squaws who were engaged in 
catching grasshoppers. Stretched along in line, 
armed with thick branches of pine, they threshed 
the ground in front of them as they advanced, 
driving the grasshoppers before them in constantly 
increasing numbers, until the air was thick with 
the flying insects. Their course was directed to a 
deep gully, or gulch, into which they fell exhausted. 
It was astonishing to see with what dexterity the 
squaws would gather them up and thrust them into 
a sort of covered basket, made of willow twigs or 
tule grass, while the insects would be trying to es- 
cape, but would fall back unable to rise above the 
sides of the gulch in which they had been en- 
trapped. The grasshoppers are dried, or cured, 
for winter use. A white man who had tried them 



THE DIGGERS. 139 

told me they were pleasant eating, having a flavor 
very similar to that of a good shrimp. (1 was con- 
tent to take his word for it. ) 

When Bishop Soule was in Cahfornia, in 1853, 
he paid a visit to a Digger campoody (or village) 
in the Calaveras hills. He was profoundly inter- 
ested, and expressed an ardent desire to be instru- 
mental in the conversion of one of these poor kin. 
It was yet early in the morning when the Bishop 
and his party arrived, and the Diggers were not 
astir, save here and there a squaw, in primitive 
array, who slouched lazily toward a spring of 
water hard by. But soon the arrival of the visitors 
was made known, and the bucks, squaws, and 
papooses sw^armed forth. They cast curious looks 
upon the whole party, but were specially struck 
with the majestic bearing of the Bishop, as were 
the passing crowds in London, who stopped in the 
streets to craze whh admiration upon the great 
American preacher. The Digger chief did not 
conceal his delight. After looking upon the Bishop 
fixedly for some moments, he went up to him, and, 
tapping first his own chest and then the Bishop's, 
he said: " Me big man; you big man! " It was 
his opinion that two great men had met, and that 
the occasion was a grand one. Morahzing to the 
contrary notwithstanding, greatness is not always 
lacking in self-consciousness. 

" I would like to go into one of their wigwams, 
or huts, and see how they really live," said the 
Bishop. 

'' You had better drop that idea," said the guide, 
a w^hite man who knew more about Digger Indians 
than was good for his reputation and morals, but 
who was a good-hearted fellow, always ready to do 
a friendly turn, and with plenty of time on his 
hands to do it. The genius born to live without 



140 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

work will make his wa}^ by his wits, whether it be 
in the lobby at Washington City or as a hanger- 
on at a Digger camp. 

The Bishop insisted on going inside the chief's 
wigwam, which was a conical structure of long 
tule grass, air-tight and weatherproof, with an 
aperture in front just large enough for a man's 
body in a crawHng attitude. Sacrificing his dig- 
nity, the Bishop went down on all fours, and then 
a degree lower, and, following the chief, craw^led 
in. The air was foul, the smells were strong, and 
the light was dim. The chief proceeded to tender 
to his distinguished guest the hospitalities of the 
estabhshment by offering to share his breakfast 
with him. The bill of fare was grasshoppers, with 
acorns as a side dish. The Bishop maintained his 
dignity as he squatted there in the dirt — his dig- 
nity was equal to any test. He declined the grass- 
hoppers tendered him by the chief, pleading that 
he had already breakfasted, but watched with pe- 
culiar sensations the movements of his host, as 
handful after handful of the crisp and ]\ncy gryUus 
vulgaris were crammed into his capacious mouth, 
and swallowed. What he saw and smelled, and the 
absence of fresh air, began to tell upon the Bishop 
— he became sick and pale, while a gentle perspi- 
ration, like unto that felt in the beginning of sea- 
sickness, beaded his noble forehead. With slow 
dignity, but marked emphasis, he spoke : " Brother 
Bristow, I propose that we retire." 

They retired, and there is no record that Bishop 
Soule ever expressed the least desire to repeat his 
visit to the interior of a Digger Indian's abode. 

The whites had many difficulties with the Dig- 
gers in the early days. In most cases I think the 
whites were chiefly to blame. It is very hard for 
the strong to be just to the weak. The weakest 



THE DIGGERS. I4I 

creature, pressed hard, will strike back. White 
women and children were massacred in retaliation 
for outrages committed upon the ignorant Indians 
by white outlaws. Then there would be a sweep- 
ing destruction of Indians by the excited whites, 
who in those days made rather light of Indian 
shooting. The shooting of a "buck" was about 
the same thing, whether it was a male Digger or a 
deer. 

" There is not much light in a Digger unless 
he's got the dead wood on you, an' then he'll 
make it rough for you. But these Injuns are of 
no use, an' I'd about as soon shoot one of 'em as 
a coyote" (ki-o-te). 

The speaker was a very red-faced, sandy-haired 
man, with bloodshot, blue eyes, whom I met on 
his return to the Humboldt country, after a visit to 
San Francisco. 

" Did you ever shoot an Indian?'" I asked. 
*' I hrst w^ent up into the Eel River country in 
'46," he answered. " They give us a lot of trouble 
in them days. They would steal cattle, an' our 
boys would shoot. But we've never had much 
difficulty with 'em since the big fight we had with 
'em in 1849. A good deal of devilment had been 
goin' on all roun', an' some had been killed on 
both sides. The Injuns killed two w^omen on a 
ranch in the valley, an' then we sot in just to wipe 
'em out. Their camp was in a bend of the river, 
near the head of the valley, with a deep slough on 
the right flank. There was about sixty of us, an' 

Dave was our captain. He was a hard rider, 

a dead shot, an' not very tender-hearted. The 
boys sorter liked him, but kep' a sharp eve on him, 
knowin' he was so quick an' handy with a pistol. 
Our plan was to git to their camp an' fall on 'em 
at daybreak, but the sun was risin' just as we come 



142 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in sight of it. A dog barked, an' Dave sung out: 
' Out with your pistols I pitch in, an' give 'em the 
hot lead!' In we galloped at full speed, an' as 
the Injuns come out to see what was up, we let 
'em have it. We shot forty bucks; about a dozen 
got away by swimmin' the river." 

'* Were any of the women killed? " 

**A few were knocked over. You can't be par- 
ticular when you are in a hurry; an' a squaw, 
when her blood is up, will fight equal to a buck." 

The fellow spoke with evident pride, feeling that 
he was detailing a heroic affair, having no idea 
that he had done anything wrong in merely killing 
" bucks." I noticed that this same man was very 
kind to an old lady who took the stage for Bloom- 
field — helping her into the vehicle, and looking 
after her baggage. When we parted, I did not 
care to take the hand that had held a pistol that 
morning when the Digger camp was " wiped out." 

The scattered remnants of the Digger tribes 
were gathered into a reservation in Round Valley, 
Mendocino County, north of the Bay of San Fran- 
cisco, and were there taught a mild form of agri- 
cultural life, and put under the care of govern- 
ment agents, contractors, and soldiers, with about 
the usual results. One agent, who was also a 
preacher, took several hundred of them into the 
Christian Church. They seemed to have mastered 
the leading facts of the gospel, and attained con- 
siderable proficiency in the singing of hymns. 
Altogether, the result of this effort at their conver- 
sion showed that they were human beings, and as 
such could be made recipients of the truth and 
grace of God, who is the Father of all the families 
of the earth. Their spiritual guide told me he had 
to make one compromise with them — they would 
dance. Extremes meet: the fashionable white 



THE DIGGERS. I43 

Christians of our gay capitals and the tawny Dig- 
ger exhibit the same weakness for the fascinating 
exercise that cost John the Baptist his head. 

There is one thing a Digger cannot bear, and 
that is the comforts and luxuries of civilized life. 
A number of my friends, who had taken Digger 
children to raise, found that as they approached 
maturity they fell into a decline and died, in most 
cases of some pulmonary affection. The only way 
to save them was to let them rough it, avoiding 
warm bedrooms and too much clothing. 

The Digger seems to be doomed. Civilization 
kills him ; and if he sticks to his savager}^, he will 
go down before the bullets, whisky, and vices of 
his white fellow-sinners. 



FATHER FISHER. 



HE came to California in 1855. T"he Pacific 
Conference was in session at Sacramento. 
It was announced that the new preacher 
from Texas would preach at night. The 
boat was detained in some way, and he 
just had time to reach the church, where a large 
and expectant congregation were in waiting. Be- 
low medium height, plainly dressed, and with a 
sort of peculiar shuffling movement as he went 
down the aisle, he attracted no special notice ex- 
cept for the profoundly reverential manner that 
never left him anywhere. But the moment he 
faced his audience and spoke, it was evident to 
them that a man of mark stood before them. The}^ 
were magnetized at once, and every eye w^as fixed 
upon the strong yet benignant face, the capacious 
blue eyes, the ample forehead, and massive head, 
bald on top, with silver locks on either side. His 
tones in reading the scripture and the hymns were 
remarkably solemn and ver}^ musical. The blaz- 
ing fervor of the prayer that followed was abso- 
lutely startling to some of the preachers, who had 
cooled down under the depressing influence of the 
moral atmosphere of the country. It almost seemed 
as if we could hear the rush of the pentecostal 
wind and see the tongues of flame. The very 
house seemed to be rocking on its foundations. 
By the time the prayer had ended, all were in a 
glow, and ready for the sermon. The text I do 
not now call to mind, but the impression made by 

(144) 



FATHER FISHER. I45 

the sermon remains. I had seen and heard preach- 
ers who glowed in the pulpit; this man blazed. 
His words poured forth in a molten flood, his face 
shone Hke a furnace heated from within, his large 
blue eyes flashed with the lightning of impassioned 
sentiment, and anon swam in pathetic appeal that 
no heart could resist. Body, brain, and spirit — all 
seemed to feel the mighty afflatus. His very frame 
seemed to expand, and the httle man who had 
gone into the pulpit with shufl^ing step and down- 
cast eyes was transfigured before us. When, with 
radiant face, upturned eyes, an upward sweep of 
his arm, and trumpet voice, he shouted, "Halle- 
lujah to God! " the tide of emotion broke over all 
barriers, the people rose to their feet, and the 
church reechoed with their responsive haUelujahs. 
The new preacher from Texas that night gave 
some Cahfornians a new idea of evangelical elo- 
quence, and took his place as a burning and a 
shining light among the ministers of God on the 
Pacific coast. 

"He is the man we want for San Francisco! " 
exclaimed the impulsive B. T. Crouch, who had 
kindled into a generous enthusiasm under that mar- 
velous discourse. 

He was sent to San Francisco. He was one of 
a company of preachers who have successively 
had charge of the Southern Methodist Church in 
that wondrous city inside the Golden Gate — Bor- 
ing, Evans, Fisher, Fitzgerald, Gober, Brown, 
Bailey, Wood, Miller, Ball, Hoss, Chamberhn, 
Mahon, Tuggle, Simmons, Henderson. There 
was an almost unlimited diversity of temperament, 
culture, and gifts among these men; but they all 
had a similar experience in this, that San Francis- 
co gave them new revelations of human nature 
and of themselves. Some went away crippled and 
10 



146 CALIF'ORNIA SKETCHES. 

scarred, some sad, some broken; but perhaps in 
the Great Day it may be found that for each and 
all there was a hidden blessing in the heart throes 
of a service that seemed to demand that they should 
sow in bitter tears, and know no joyful reaping 
this side of the grave. O mj- brothers, who have 
felt the fires of this furnace heated seven times 
hotter than usual, shall we not in the resting place 
beyond the river realize that these fires burned out 
of us the dross that we did not know was in our 
souls? The bird that comes out of the tempest 
with broken wing may henceforth take a lowlier 
flight, but will be safer because it ventures no 
more into the region of storms. 

Fisher did not succeed in San Francisco, be- 
cause he could not get a hearing. A little hand- 
ful would meet him on Sunday mornings in one of 
the upper rooms of the old City Hall, and listen to 
sermons that sent them away in a religious glow, 
but he had no leverage for getting at the masses. 
He was no adept in the methods by which the 
modern sensational preacher compels the attention 
of the novelt3'-loving crowds in our cities. An 
evangelist in every fiber of his being, he chafed 
under the limitations of his charge in San Francis- 
co ; and from time to time he would make a dash 
into the country, where, at camp meetings and 
other special occasions, he preached the gospel 
with a power that broke man}^ a sinner's heart, 
and with a persuasiveness that brought many a 
wanderer back to the Good Shepherd's fold. His 
bodily energy, like his religious zeal, was unflag- 
ging. It seemed little less than a miracle that he 
could, day after day, make such vast expenditure 
of nervous energy without exhaustion. He put all 
his strength into every sermon and exhortation, 
whether addressed to admiring and weeping thou- 



FATHER FISHER. I47 

sands at a great camp meeting, or to a dozen or 
less " stand-bys " at the Saturday morning service 
of a quarterly meeting. 

He had his trials and crosses. Those who knew 
him intimately learned to expect his mightiest pul- 
pit efforts when the shadow on his face and the 
unconscious sigh showed that he was passing 
through the waters and crying to God out of the 
depths. In such experiences, the strong man is 
revealed and gathers new strength ; the weak one 
goes under. But his strength was more than mere 
natural force of will ; it was the strength of a mighty 
faith in God — that unseen force by which the 
saints work righteousness, subdue kingdoms, es- 
cape the violence of fire, and stop the mouths of 
lions. 

As a flame of fire, Fisher itinerated all over 
California and Oregon, kindhng a blaze of revival 
in almost every place he touched. He was mighty 
in the Scriptures, and seemed to know the Book 
by heart. His was no rose water theology. He 
beheved in a hell, and pictured it in Bible lan- 
guage with a vividness and aw^fulness that thrilled 
the stoutest sinner's heart; he believed in heaven, 
and spoke of it in such a way that it seemed that 
with him faith had already changed to sight. The 
gates of pearl, the crystal river, the shining ranks 
of the w^hite-robed throngs, their songs swelling as 
the sound of many w^aters, the holy love and rap- 
ture of the glorified hosts of the redeemed, were 
made to pass in panoramic procession before the 
hstening multitudes, until the heaven he pictured 
seemed to be a present reality. He lived in the 
atmosphere of the supernatural; the spirit w^orld 
was to him most real. 

"I have been out of the body," he said to me 
one day. The words were spoken softly, and hi§ 



148 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

countenance, always grave in its aspect, deepened 
in its solemnity of expression as he spoke. 

*' How was that?" I inquired. 

** It was in Texas. I was returning from a 
quarterly meeting where I had preached one Sun- 
day morning with great liberty and with unusual 
effect. The horses attached to my vehicle became 
frightened, and ran awa}^ They were wholly be- 
yond control, plunging down the road at a fearful 
speed, when, by a slight turn to one side, the 
wheel struck a large log. There was a concus- 
sion, and then a blank. The next thing I knew I 
was floating in the air above the road. I saw 
everything as plainly as I see your face at this mo- 
ment. There lay my body in the road; there lay 
the log; and there were the trees, the fence, the 
fields, and everything, perfectly natural. My mo- 
tion, which had been upward, was arrested, and 
as, poised in the air, I looked at my body lying 
there in the road so still, I felt a strong desire to 
go back to it, and found myself sinking toward it. 
The next thing I knew I was lying in the road 
where I had been thrown out, with a number of 
friends about me, some holding up my head, others 
chafing my hands, or looking on with pity or alarm. 
Yes, I was out of the body for a little, and I know 
there is a spirit world." 

His voice had sunk into a sort of whisper, and 
the tears were in his eyes. I was strangely thrilled. 
Both of us were silent for a time, as if w^e heard 
the echoes of voices and saw the beckonings of 
shadowy hands from that other world which 
sometimes seems so far away, and yet is so near 
to each one of us. 

Surely von heaven, where angels see God's face, 

Is not so distant as we deem 
From this low earth. 'Tis hut a little space, 
'Tis but a veil the winds might blgw aside; 



FATHER FISHER. I49 

Yes, this all that us of earth divide 
From the bright dwellings of the glorified, 
The land of which I dream. 

But it was no dream to this man of mighty faith, 
the windows of whose soul opened at all times God- 
ward. To him immortality was a demonstrated 
fact, an experience. He had been out of the body. 

Intensity was his dominating quality. He wrote 
verses, and whatever they may have lacked of the 
subtle element that marks poetical genius, they 
were full of his ardent personality and devotional 
abandon. He compounded medicines whose vir- 
tues, backed by his own unwavering faith, wrought 
wondrous cures. On several occasions he accept- 
ed challenge to polemic battle, and his opponents 
found in him a fearless warrior, whose onset was 
next to irresistible. In these discussions it was no 
uncommon thing for his arguments to close with 
such bursts of spiritual power that the doctrinal 
duel would end in a great religious excitement, 
bearing disputants and hearers away on mighty 
tides of feeling that none could resist. 

I saw in the Texas Christian Advocate an inci- 
dent, related by Dr. F. A. Mood, that gives a good 
idea of what Fisher's eloquence was when in full 
tide: 

"About ten years ago," says Dr. M., '* when 
the train from Houston, on the Central railroad, 
on one occasion reached Hempstead, it was per- 
emptorily brought to a halt. There was a strike 
among the employees of the road, on what was sig- 
nificantly called by the strikers the ' Death War- 
rant.' The road, it seems, had required all of its 
employees to sign a paper renouncing all claims 
to moneyed reparation in case of their bodily in- 
jury while in its service. The excitement inci- 
dent to a strike was at its height at Hempstead 
when our train reached there. The tracks were 



150 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

blocked with trains that had been stopped as they 
arrived from the different branches of the road, 
and the employees were gathered about in groups, 
discussing the situation— the passengers peering 
around with hopeless curiosity. When our train 
stopped, the conductor told us that we would have 
to lie over all night, and many of the passengers 
left to find accommodations in the hotels of the 
town. It was now night, when a man came into 
the car and exclaimed: 'The strikers are tarring 
and feathering a poor wretch out here, who has 
taken sides with the road; come out and see it?' 
Nearly every one in the car hastened out. I had 
risen, when a gentleman behind me gently pulled 
my coat, and said to me: * Sit down a moment.' 
He went onto say: ' I judge, sir, that you are a cler- 
gyman ; and I advise you to remain here. You may 
be put to much inconvenience by having to appear 
as a witness; in a mob of that sort, too, there is 
no telling what may follow.' I thanked him and 
resumed my seat. He then asked me to what de- 
nomination I belonged, and upon my telling him 
that I was a Methodist preacher, he asked eagerly 
and promptly if I had ever met a Methodist 
preacher in Texas by the name of Fisher, describ- 
ing accurately the appearance of our glorified 
brother. Finding that I knew him well, he pro- 
ceeded to give the following incident. I give it as 
nearl}^ as I can in his own words. Said he: 

*' 'I am a Californian; have practiced law for 
years in that State, and, at the time I allude to, 

was district judge. I was holding court at [I 

cannot now recall the name of the town he men- 
tioned], and on Saturday was told that a Metho- 
dist camp meeting was being held a few miles from 
town. I determined to visit it, and reached the 
place of meeting in good time to hear the great 



FATHICR FISHI<:R. I5I 

preacher of the occasion, Father Fisher. The 
meeting was held in a river canyon. The rocks 
towered hundreds ol feet on either side, rising- 
over like an arch. Through the ample space over 
which the rocks hung the river flowed, furnishing 
abundance of cool water, while a pleasant breeze 
fanned a shaded spot. A great multitude had as- 
sembled — hundreds of very hard cases, who had 
gathered there, like myself, for the mere novelty 
of the thing. 1 am not a religious man — never 
have been thrown under religious influences. I 
respect religion, and respect its teachers, but have 
been very little in contact with religious things. 
At the appointed time, the preacher rose. He was 
small, wdth white hair combed back from his fore- 
head, and he wore a venerable beard. I do not 
know much about the Bible, and I cannot quote 
from his text, but he preached on the judgment. 
I tell you, sir, I have heard eloquence at the bar 
and on the hustings, but I never heard such elo- 
quence as that old preacher gave us that day. At 
the last, when he described the multitudes calling 
on the rocks and mountains to fall on them, I in- 
stinctively looked up to the arching rocks above 
me. Will you believe it, sir? — as I looked up, to 
my horror I saw the walls of the canyon swaying 
as if they were coming together ! Just then the 
preacher called on all that needed mercy to kneel 
down. I recollect he said somethinjx like this: 
" * Every knee shall bows and every tongue shall 
confess;' and you miglit as well do it now as then." 
The whole multitude fell on their knees — every 
one of them. Althoug-h I had never done so be- 
fore, I confess to you, sir, that I got down on my 
knees. I did not want to be buried right then and 
there by those rocks that seemed to be swaying to 
destroy me. The old man prayed for us; it was 



ij2 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

a wonderful prayer ! I want to see him once 
more; where will I be likely to find him?' 

''When he had closed his narrative, I said to 
him: 'Judge, I hope 30U have bowed frequently 
since that day.' 'Alas! no, sir,' he replied, ' not 
much; but depend upon it, Father Fisher is a 
wonderful orator — he made me think that day that 
the walls of the canyon were falling.' " 

He went back to Texas, the scene of his early 
labors and triumphs, to die. His evening sky was 
not cloudless — he suffered much — but his sunset 
was calm and bright; his waking in the Morning 
Land was glorious. If it was at that short period 
of silence spoken of in the Apocalypse, we may 
be sure it was broken when Fisher went in. 



rHE CALirORNIA MADHOUSE. 



ON my first visit to the State Insane Asy- 
lum, at Stockton, I was struck by the 
beauty of a boy of some seven or eight 
years, who was moving about the grounds 
clad in a strait-jacket. In reply to my 
inquiries, the resident physician told me his his- 
tory: 

'* About a year ago he was on his way to Cali- 
fornia with the family to which he belonged. He 
was a general pet among the passengers on the 
steamer. Handsome, confiding, and overflowing 
with boyish spirits, everybody had a smile and a 
kind word for the winning little fellow. Even the 
rough sailors would pause a moment to pat his 
curly head as they passed. One day a sailor, 
yielding to a playful impulse in passing, caught up 
the boy in his arms, crying: ' I am going to throw 
you into the sea ! ' 

*' The child gave one scream of terror, and went 
into convulsions. When the paroxysm subsided, 
he opened his eyes and gazed around with a va- 
cant expression. His mother, who bent over him 
with a pale face, noticed the look, and almost 
screamed: ' Tommy, here is your mother! Don't 
you know me? 

" The child gave no sign of recognition. He 
never knew his poor mother again. He was liter- 
ally friglitened out of his senses. The mother's 
anguish was terrible. The remorse of the sailor 

(153) 



154 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

for his thoughtless freak was so great that it in 
some degree disarmed the indignation of the pas- 
sengers and crew. The child had learned to read, 
and had made rapid progress in the studies suited 
to his age, but all was swept away by the cruel 
blow. He was unable to utter a word intelligently. 
Since he has been here there have been signs of 
returning mental consciousness, and we have be- 
gun with him as with an infant. He knows and 
can call his own name, and is now learning the 
alphabet." 

*' How is his health?" 

*' His health is pretty good, except that he has 
occasional convulsive attacks that can only be con- 
trolled by the use of powerful opiates." 

I was glad to learn, on a visit made two years 
later, that the unfortunate boy had died. 

This child was murdered by a fool. The fools 
are always murdering children, though the work is 
not always done as effectually as in this case. 
They cripple and half kill them by terror. There 
are many who will read this sketch who will carry 
to the grave and into the world of spirits natures 
out of which half the sweetness and brightness and 
beauty has been crushed by ignorance or brutality. 
In most cases it is ignorance. The hand that 
should guide, smites; the voice that should soothe, 
jars the sensitive chords that are untuned forever. 
He who thoughtlessly excites terror in a child's 
heart is unconsciously doing the devil's work; he 
that does it consciously is a devil. 

*' There is a lady here whom I wish you would 
talk to. She belongs to one of the most respecta- 
ble families in San Francisco, is cultivated, refined, 
and has been the center of a larcje and lovintj 
circle. Her monomania is spiritual despair. She 
thinks she has committed the unpardonable sin. 



THE CALIFORNIA MADHOUSE. I55 

There she is now. I will introduce you to her. 
Talk with her, and comfort her if you can." 

She was a tall, well-formed woman in black, 
with all the marks of refinement in her dress and 
bearing. She was walking the floor to and fro 
with rapid steps, wringing her hands and moaning 
piteously. Indescribable anguish was in her face 
— it was a homeless face. It haunted my thoughts 
for many days, and it is vividly before me as I 
write now^ The kind physician introduced me, 
and left the apartment. 

There is a sacredness about such an interview 
that inclines me to veil its details. 

" I am willing to talk with you, sir, and appre- 
ciate your motive, but I understand my situation. 
I have committed the unpardonable sin, and I 
know there is no hope for me." 

With the earnestness excited by intense sympa- 
thy, I combated her conclusion, and felt certain 
that I could make her see and feel that she had 
given way to an illusion. 

She listened respectfully to all I had to say, and 
then said again: " I know my situation. I denied 
m}^ Saviour after all his goodness to me, and he 
has left me forever." 

There was the frozen calmness of utter despair 
in look and tone. I left her as I found her. 

" I w^ill introduce you to another woman, the 
opposite of the poor lady you have just seen. She 
thinks she is a queen, and is perfectly harmless. 
You must be careful to humor her illusion. There 
she is; let me present you." 

She was a woman of immense size, enormously 
fat, with broad, red face, and a self-satisfied smirk, 
dressed in some sort of flaming scarlet stuff, pro- 
fusely tinseled all over, making a gorgeously ridic- 
ulous effect. She received me with a mixture of 



156 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES* 

mock dignity and smiling condescension, and, sur- 
veying herself admiringly, she asked: ''How do 
you like my dress ? ' ' 

It was not the first time that royalty had shown 
itself not above the little weaknesses of human na- 
ture. On being told that her apparel was indeed 
magnificent, she was much pleased, and drew her- 
self up proudly, and was a picture of ecstatic van- 
ity. Are the real queens as happy? When they 
lay aside their royal robes for their graveclothes, 
will not the pageantry which was the glory of their 
lives seem as vain as that of this tinseled queen of 
the madhouse? Where is happiness, after all? Is 
it in the circumstances, the external conditions? or 
is it in the mind ? Such were the thoughts passing 
through my mind, when a man approached me 
with a violin. Every eye brightened, and the 
queen seemed to thrill with pleasure in every 
nerve. 

" This is the only way we can get some of them 
to take any exercise. The music rouses them, 
and they will dance as long as they are permitted 
to do so." 

The fiddler struck up a lively tune, and the 
queen, with marvelous lightness of step and ogling 
glances, ambled up to a tall, raw-boned Methodist 
preacher, who had come with me, and invited him 
to dance with her. The poor parson seemed sadly 
embarrassed, as her manner was very pressing; but 
he awkwardly and confusedly declined, amid the 
titters of all present. It was a singular spectacle, 
that dance of the madwomen. The most striking 
figure on the floor was the queen. Her great size, 
her brilliant apparel, her astonishing agiHty, the 
perfect time she kept, the bows, the smiles, and 
blandishments she bestowed on an imaginary part- 
ner were indescribably ludicrous. Now and then 



THE CALIFORNIA MADHOUSE. 157 

in her evolutions she would cast a momentary re- 
proachful glance at the ungallant clergyman who 
had refused to dance with feminine royalty, and 
who stood looking on with a sheepish expression 
of face. He was a Kentuckian, and lack of gal- 
lantry is not a Kentuck}^ trait. 

During the session of the Annual Conference at 
Stockton, in 1859 ^^' i860, the resident physician 
invited me to preach to the inmates of the Asylum 
on Sunday afternoon. The novelty of the service, 
which was announced in the daily papers, attracted 
a large number of visitors, among them the greater 
part of the preachers. The day was one of those 
bright, clear, beautiful October days, peculiar to 
California, that make you think of heaven. I stood 
on the steps, and the hundreds of men and women 
stood below me with their upturned faces. Among 
them were old men crushed by sorrow, and old 
men ruined by vice ; aged women with faces that 
seemed to plead for pity, women that made you 
shrink from their unwomanl}^ gaze ; lionlike young 
men, made for heroes, but caught in the devil's 
trap and changed into beasts; and boys whose 
looks showed that sin had already stamped them 
with its foul insignia, and burned into their souls 
the shame which is to be one of the elements of 
its eternal punishment. A less impressible man 
than I would have felt moved at the sight of that 
throng of bruised and broken creatures. A hymn 
was read, and when Burnet, Kelsay, Neal, and 
others of the preachers struck up an old tune, 
voice after voice joined in the melody until it 
swelled into a mighty volume of sacred song. I 
noticed that the faces of many were wet with tears, 
and there was an indescribable pathos in their 
voices. The pitying God, amid the rapturous hal- 
lelujahs of the heavenly hosts, bent to listen to the 



158 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

music of these broken harps. This text was an- 
nounced, " My peace I give unto you; " and the 
sermon began. 

Among those standing nearest to me was " Old 
Kelley," a noted patient, whose monomania was 
the notion that he was a millionaire, and who spent 
most of his time in drawing checks on imaginary 
deposits for vast sums of money. I held one of 
his checks for a round million, but it has never yet 
been cashed. The old man pressed up close to 
me, seeming to feel that the success of the service 
somehow depended on him. I had not more than 
fairly begun my discourse, when he broke in: 
"That's Daniel Webster! " 

I don't mind a judicious "Amen," but this put 
me out a little. I resumed my remarks, and was 
getting another good start, when he again broke in 
enthusiastically: " Henr}^ Clay! " 

The preachers standing around me smiled. I 
think I heard one or two of them titter. I could 
not take my eyes from Kelley, who stood with 
open mouth and beaming countenance, waiting for 
me to go on. He held me with an evil fascination. 
I did go on in a louder voice, and in a sort of des- 
peration ; but again my delighted hearer exclaimed : 
"Calhoun! " 

*' Old Kelley" spoiled that sermon, though he 
meant kindty. He died not long afterward, gloat- 
inir over his fancied millions to the last. 

" If you have steady nerves, come with me and 
I will show you the worst case we have — a woman 
half tigress and half devil." 

Ascending a stairway, I was led to an angle of 
the building assigned to patients whose violence 
required them to be kept in close confinement. 

*' Hark! don't you hear her? She is in one of 
her paroxysms now." 



THE CALIFORNIA MADHOUSP:. 1 59 

The sounds that issued from one of the cells 
were like nothing I had ever heard before. They 
were a series of unearthly, fiendish shrieks, inter- 
mingled with furious imprecations, as of a lost 
spirit in an ecstasy of rage and fear. 

The face that glared upon me through the iron 
grating was hideous, horrible. It was that of a 
woman, or of what had been a woman, but was 
now a wreck out of which evil passion had stamped 
all that was womanly or human. I involuntarily 
shrunk back as I met the glare of those fiery eyes, 
and cauoht the sound of words that made me shud- 
der. I never suspected myself of being a coward, 
but I felt glad that the iron bars of the cell against 
which she dashed herself were strong. I had read 
of furies — one was now before me. The bloated, 
gin-inflamed face, the fiery-red, wicked eyes, the 
swinish chin, the tangled, coarse hair falling 
around her like writhing snakes, the tigerlike 
clutch of her dirty fingers, the horrible words — the 
picture was sickening, disgust for the time almost 
extinguishing pity. 

'' She was the keeper of a beer saloon in San 
Francisco, and led a life of drunkenness and li- 
centiousness until she broke down, and she was 
brouorht here." 

** Is there any hope of her restoration? " 

" I fear not. Nothin<x short of a miracle can re- 
tune an instrument so fearfully broken and jan- 
gled." 

I thought of her out of whom were cast the seven 
devils, and of Him who came to seek and to save 
the lost, and, resisting the impulse that prompted 
me to hurry away from the siglit and hearing of 
this lost woman, I tried to talk with her, but had 
to retire at last amid a volley of such words as I 
hope never to hear from a woman's lips again. 



l6o CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

*' Listen! Did you ever hear a sweeter voice 
than that?" 

I had heard the voice before, and thrilled under 
its power. It was a female voice of wonderful 
richness and volume, with a touch of something in 
it that moved you strangely — a sort of intensity 
that set your pulses to beating faster, while it en- 
tranced you. The whole of the spacious grounds 
were flooded with the melody, and the passing 
teamsters on the public highway would pause and 
listen with wonder and delight. The singer was a 
fair young girl, with dark auburn hair, large brown 
eyes, that were at times dreamy and sad, and then 
again lit up with excitement, as her moods changed 
from sad to gay. 

"She will sit silent for hours, gazing listlessly 
out of the window, and then all at once break forth 
into a burst of song so sweet and thrilling that the 
other patients gather near her and listen in rapt 
silence and delight. Sometimes at a dead hour of 
the night her voice is heard, and then it seems that 
she is under a special ajflatus — she seems to be in- 
spired by the very soul of music, and her songs, 
wild and sad, wailing and rollicking, by turns, but 
all exquisitely sweet, fill the long night hours with 
their melody." 

The shock caused by the sudden death of her 
betrothed lover overthrew her reason and blighted 
her life. By the mercy of God, the love of music 
and the gift of song survived the wreck of love 
and of reason. This girl's voice, pealing forth 
upon the still summer evening air, is mingled with 
my last recollection of Stockton and its refuge for 
the doubly miserable who are doomed to death in 
life. 



THE REBLOOMING. 



IT is now more than thirty years since the 
morning a slender 3^outh of handsome face 
and modest mien came into my oflice on the 
corner of Montgomery and Clay Streets, San 
Francisco. He was the son of a preacher 
well known in Missouri and California, a man of 
rare good sense, caustic wit, and many eccentrici- 
ties. The young man became an attache of my 
newspaper office and an inmate of my home. He 
was as fair as a girl, and refined in his taste and 
manners. A genial taciturnity, if the expression 
may be allowed, marked his bearing in the social 
circle. Everybody had a kind feeling and a good 
w^ord for the quiet, bright-faced youth. In the 
discharge of his duties in the oflice he was punc- 
tual and trustworthy, showing not only industry, 
but unusual aptitude for business. It was with 
special pleasure that I learned that he was turning 
his thoucdits to the subject of rellpon. During the 
services^in the little Pine Street church he would 
sit wdth thoughtful face, and not seldom with moist- 
ened eyes. He read the Bible and prayed in se- 
cret. I was not surprised when he came to me 
one day and opened his heart. The great crisis 
in his fife had come. God was speaking to his 
soul, and he w^as fistening to his voice. The up- 
lifted cross drew^ him, and he yielded to the gentle 
attraction. We prayed together, and henceforth 
there was a new and sacred bond that bound us to 
each other. I felt that I w^as a witness to the most 
solemn transaction that can take place on earth: 
the wedding of a soul to a heavenly faith. Soon 
(U) (l^^'l) 



l62 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

thereafter he went to Virginia to attend college. 
There he united with the Church. His letters to 
me were full of gratitude and joy. It was the 
blossoming of his spiritual life, and the air was full 
of its fragrance, and the earth was flooded with 
glory. A pedestrian tour among the Virginia hills 
brought him into communion with nature at a time 
when it was rapture to drink in its beauty and its 
grandeur. The light kindled within his soul by 
the touch of the Holy Spirit transfigured the scen- 
ery upon which he gazed, and the glory of God 
shone round about the young student in the flush 
and blessedness of his first love. O blessed days ! 
O da3^s of brightness and sweetness and rapture ! 
The soul is then in its blossoming time, and all 
high enthusiasms, all bright dreams, all thrilling 
joys, are realities which inwork themselves into 
the consciousness, to be forgotten never; to re- 
main with us as prophecies of the eternal spring- 
time that awaits the true-hearted on the hills of 
God be3^ond the grave, or as accusing voices 
charging us with the murder of our dead ideals. 
Amid the dust and din of the battle in after years 
we turn to this radiant spot in our journey with 
smiles or tears, according as we have been true or 
false to the impulses, aspirations, and purposes in- 
spired within us by that first and brightest and 
nearest manifestation of God. Such a season is 
as natural to every life as the April buds and June 
roses are to forest and garden. The springtime 
of some lives is deferred by unpropitious circum- 
stance to the time when it should be glowing with 
autumnal glory, and rich in the fruitage of the 
closing year. The life that does not blossom into 
religion in youth may have light at noon, and 
peace at sunset, but misses the morning glory on 
the hills and the dew that sparkles on grass and 



THE REBLOOMING. 163 

flower. The call of God to the young to seek him 
early is the expression of a true psychology no 
less than of a love iniinite in its depth and tender- 
ness. 

His college course finished, my young friend re- 
turned to California, and in one of its beautiful 
valley towns he entered a law office, with a view 
to prepare himself for the legal profession. Here 
he was thrown into daily association with a little 
knot of skeptical lawyers. As is often the case, 
their moral obHquities ran parallel with their errors 
in opinion. They swore, gambled genteelly, and 
drank. It is not strange that in this icy atmos- 
phere the growth of my young friend in the Chris- 
tian life was stunted. Such influences are like the 
dreaded north wind that at times sweeps over the 
valleys of California in the spring and early sum- 
mer, blighting and withering the vegetation it does 
not kill. The brightness of his hope was dimmed, 
and his soul knew the torture of doubt — a torture 
that is always keenest to him who allows himself 
to sink in the region of fogs after he has once 
stood upon the sunlit summit of faith. Just at this 
crisis a thing little in itself deepened the shadow 
that was falling upon his life. A personal misun- 
derstanding with the pastor kept him from attend- 
ing church. Thus he lost the most effectual de- 
fense against the assaults that were being made 
upon his faith and hope, in being separated from 
the fellowship and cut off from the activities of 
the Church of God. Have you not noted these 
malign coincidences in life? There are times 
when it seems that the tide of events sets against 
us — w^hen, like the princely sufferer of the land of 
Uz, every messenger that crosses the threshold 
brings fresh tidings of ill, and our whole destiny 
seems to be rushing to a predoomed perdition. 



164 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

The worldly call it bad luck ; the superstitious call 
it fate; the believer in God calls it by another 
name. Always of a delicate constitution, my 
friend now exhibited symptoms of serious pulmo- 
nary disease. It was at that time the fashion in 
California to prescribe whisky as a specific for 
that class of ailments. It is possible that there is 
virtue in the prescription, but I am sure of one 
thing — namely, that if consumption diminished, 
drunkenness increased; if fewer died of phthisis, 
more died of delirmm ire^nens. The physicians 
of California have sent a host of victims raving and 
gibbering in drunken frenzy or idiocy down to 
death and hell. I have reason to believe that my 
friend inherited a constitutional weakness at this 
point. As flame to tinder, was the medicinal 
whisky to him. It grew upon him rapidly, and 
soon this cloud overshadowed all his life. He 
struggled hard to break the serpent folds that were 
tifjhtening^ around him, but the fire that had been 
kindled seemed to be quenchless. An uncontrolled 
evil passion is hell fire. He writhed in its burn- 
ings in an agony that could be understood only by 
such as knew how almost morbidly sensitive was 
his nature, and how vntal was his conscience. I 
became a pastor in the town where he lived, and 
renewed my association with him as far as I could. 
But there was a constraint unlike the old times. 
When under the influence of liquor he would pass 
me in the streets with his head down, a deeper 
flush mantling his cheek as he hurried by with un- 
steady step. Sometimes I met him staggering 
homeward through a back street, hiding from the 
gaze of men. He was at first shy of me when 
sober; but gradually the constraint wore off, and 
he seemed disposed to draw nearer to me, as in 
the old days. His struggle went on, days of 



THE REBLOOMING. 



165 



drunkenness following weeks ot soberness, his 
hacrcrard face after each debauch wearing a look 
of mispeakable weariness and wretchedness. One 
of the lawyers who had led him into the mazes ot 
doubt— a man of large and versatile gifts, whose 
Hps were touched with a noble and persuasive elo- 
quence— sunk deeper and deeper into the black 
depths of drunkenness, until the tragedy ended in 
a horror that lessened the gains of the saloon lor 
at least a few days. He was found dead in his 
bed one morning in a pool of blood, his throat cut 
by his own guilty hand. 

My friend had married a lovely girl, andthe 
cottao-e in which they lived was one of the cosiest, 
and the garden in front was a httle paradise ot 
neatness and beauty. Ah ! I must drop a veil over 
a part of this true tale. All along I have written 
under half protest, the image of a sad, wistful face 
rising at times between my eyes and the sheet on 
which these words are traced. They loved each 
other tenderly and deeplv, and both were conscious 
of the presence of the devil that was turning then- 
heaven into hell. . -r-r • 1 1,1.- 
'* Save him, Doctor, save him ! He is the noblest 
of men, and the tenderest, truest husband. He 
loves you, and he will let you talk to him. Save 
him, O save him ! Help me to pray for him ! My 

heart will break! " . 1 j . 1 

Poor child ! her loving heart was indeed break- 
ing; and her fresh young life was crushed under 
a weight of grief and shame too heavy to be borne. 
What he said to me in the interviews held in his 
sober intervals I have not the heart to repeat now. 
He still fought against his enemy; he still butteted 
the billows that were going over him, though vvith 
feebler stroke. When their little child died, her 
tears fell freely, but he was like one stunned. 



l66 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES- 

Stony and silent he stood and saw the little grave 
filled up, and rode away tearless, the picture of 
hopelessness. 

By a coincidence, after my return to San Fran- 
cisco, he came thither, and again became my 
neighbor at North Beach. I went up to see him 
one evening. He was very feeble, and it was plain 
that the end was not far off. At the first glance I 
saw that a great change had taken place in him. 
He had found his lost self. The strong drink was 
shut out from him, and he was shut in with his 
better thoughts and with God. His religicus life 
rebloomed in wondrous beaut}^ and sweetness. The 
blossoms of his early joy had fallen off, the storms 
had torn its branches and stripped it of its foliage ; 
but its root had never perished, because he had 
never ceased to struggle for deliverance. Aspira- 
tion and hope live or die together in the human 
soul. The link that bound my friend to God was 
never wholly sundered. His better nature clung 
to the better way with a grasp that never let go al- 
together. 

** O Doctor, I am a wonder to myself! It does 
seem to me that God has given back to me every 
good thing I possessed in the bright and blessed 
past. It has all come back to me. I see the light 
and feel the joy as I did when I first entered the 
new life. O, it is wonderful! Doctor, God never 
gave me up, and I never ceased to yearn for his 
mercy and love, even in the darkest season of my 
unhappy life ! " 

His very face had recovered its old look, and his 
voice its old tone. There could be no doubt of it 
— his soul had rebloomed in the life of God. 

The last night came. They sent for me with the 
message: ** Come quickly! he is dying." 

I found him with that look which I have seen 



THE U KB LOOMING. 1 67 

on the faces of others who were nearing death — a 
radiance and a rapture that awed the beholder. 
O solemn, awful mystery of death! 1 have stood 
in its presence in ever}^ form of terror and of 
sweetness, and in every case the thought has been 
impressed upon me that it was a passage into the 
great realities. 

"Doctor," he said, smihng, and holding my 
hand, " I had hoped to be with you in your othce 
again, as in the old days; not as a business ar- 
rangement, but just to be with you, and revive old 
memories, and to live the old Hfe over again. ^ But 
that cannot be, and I must wait till w^e meet in the 
world of spirits, whither I go before you. It seems 
to be growing dark. I cannot see your face, hold 
my hand. I am going — going. I am on the waves 
— on the weaves " — 

The radiance was still upon his face, but the 
hand I held no longer clasped mine — the wasted 
form was still. It was the end. He w^as launched 
upon the inlinite sea for the endless voyage. 



SAN QUENTIN. 

1WANT you to go with me over to San Quentin 
next Thursday, and preach a thanksgiving ser- 
mon to the poor fellows in the State prison." 
On the appointed morning I met our party 
at the Vallejo Street wharf, and we were soon 
steaming on our way. Passing under the guns of 
Fort Alcatraz, past Angel Island (why so called I 
know not, as in early days it was inhabited not by 
angels, but goats only), all of us felt the exhilara- 
tion of the California sunshine and the bracing 
November air, as we stood upon the guards watch- 
ing the play of the lazy-looking porpoises, that 
seemed to roll along, keeping up with the swift 
motion of the boat in such a leisurely way. The 
porpoise is a deceiver. As he rolls up to the sur- 
face of the water in his lumbering way he looks as 
if he w^ere a huge lump of unwieldy awkwardness, 
floating at random and almost helpless; but when 
you come to know him better, you find that he is 
a marvel of muscular power and swiftness. I have 
seen a *' school " of porpoises in the Pacific swim- 
ming for hours alongside one of our fleetest ocean 
steamers, darting a few yards ahead now and then, 
as if by mere volition, cutting their way through 
the water with the directness of an arrow. The 
porpoise is playful at times, and his favorite game 
is a sort of leapfrog. A score or more of the 
creatures, seemingly full of fun and excitement, 
will chase one another at full speed, throwing 
themselves from the water and turnin^r somersaults 
m the air, the water boiling with the agitation, and 
(168) 



SAN QUENTIN. 



169 



their huge bodies flashing in the hght. ^ ou might 
almost imagine that they had found some h.ng m 
the sea tluU had made them drunk or that they 
had inhaled «ome sort of piscatonal ancestheUc 
But here we are at our destination, ihe bell 
rin<>s, we round to, and land. 

At San Quentin nature is at her best, and man 
at his worst. Against the rocky shore the Nvaters 
of the bay break in gentle plash.ngs when tl e 
winds are quiet. When the gales from the south- 
wesfsweep through the Golden Gate and set the 
wh te caps to dancing to their wild music the 
waves rise high, and dash upon the dnppmg stones 
wkh a hoarse'roar, as of anger. Beginning a few 
hundreds of yards from the water's edge, the hills 
slope up and up and up, until they touch the base 
of Tamdpais, on whose dark and rugged summit 
Tom- thousand feet above the sea that laves his feet 
on the west, the rays of the morning sun fall wilh 
transfiguring glory f while yet the valley below les 
in shadow. On this lofty pinnacle hnger the last 
ravs of the setting sun, as it drops into the bosom 
of the Pacific. In stormy weather the mist and 
c ouds loU n from the ocean, and gather in dark 
masses around his awful head, as if the sea gods 
had dsen from their ^o-^esin the deep, and were 
holdino- a council of war amid the battle of the e e 
men s r at other times, after calm, bright days, the 
S^k^ soft white clouds that hang about his crest 
deepen into crimson and gold, and the mountain 
Top Lks as if the angels of God had come do^^•n 
to encamp, and pitched here their pavilions ot 
Sorv This is nature at San Quentin, and this is 
Tamelpais as I have looked upon it many a morn- 
ing and many an evening from my window above 
the sea at North Beach. 

The gate is opened for us, and we enter the 



I^O CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

prison walls. It is a holiday, and the day is fair 
and balmy; but the chill and sadness cannot be 
shaken ofif, as we look around us. The sunshine 
seems almost to be a mockery in this place where 
fellow-men are caged and guarded like wild beasts, 
and skulk about with shaved heads, clad in the 
striped uniform of infamy. Merciful God ! is this 
what th}^ creature man was made for? How long, 
how long? 

Seated upon the platform with the prison offi- 
cials and visitors, I watched my strange auditors as 
they came in. There were one thousand of them. 
Their faces were a curious stud3\ Most of them 
were bad faces. Beast and devil were printed on 
them. Thick necks, heavy back-heads, and low, 
square foreheads, were the prevalent types. The 
least repulsive were those who looked as if they 
were all animal, creatures of instinct and appetite, 
good-natured and stupid ; the most repulsive were 
those whose eyes had a gleam of mingled sensual- 
ity and ferocity. But some of these faces that met 
my gaze were startling — they seemed so out of 
place. One old man with gray hair, pale, sad 
face, and clear blue eyes, might have passed, in 
other garb and in other company, for an honored 
member of the Society of Friends. He had killed 
a man in a mountain county. If he was indeed a 
murderer at heart, nature had given him the wrong 
imprint. My attention was struck by a smooth- 
faced, handsome young fellow, scarcely of age, 
who looked as little like a convict as anybody on 
that platform. He was in for burglar}^ and had a 
very bad record. Some came in half laughing, as 
if they thought the whole affair more a joke than 
anything else. The Mexicans, of whom there were 
quite a number, were sullen and scowling. There 
is gloom in the Spanish blood. The irrepressible 



SAN QU^NTIN. 17I 

good nature of several rudd3'-faced Irishmen broke 
out in sly merriment. As the service began, the 
discipline of the prison showed itself in the quiet 
that instantly prevailed ; but only a few, who joined 
in the singing, seemed to feel the slightest interest 
in it. Their eyes were wandering, and their faces 
were vacant. They had the look of men who had 
come to be talked at and patronized, and who were 
used to it. The prayer that was offered was not 
calculated to banish such a feeling — it was dry and 
cold. I stood up to begin the sermon. Never be- 
fore had I realized so fully that God's message was 
to lost men and for lost men. A mighty tide of 
pity rushed in upon my soul as I looked down into 
the faces of my hearers. My eyes tilled, and my 
heart melted within me. I could not speak until 
after a pause, and only then by great effort. There 
was a deep silence, and every face was lifted to 
mine as I announced the text. God had touched 
my heart and theirs at the start. I read the words 
slowly: " God hath not appointed us to wrath, but 
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." 
Then I said: *' My fellow-men, I come to you to- 
day with a message from my Father and your 
Father in heaven. It is a message of hope. God 
help me to deliver it as I ought ! God help you to 
hear it as you ought ! I will not insult you by say- 
ing that because you have an extra dinner, a few 
hours' respite from your toil, and a little fresh air 
and sunshine, you ought to have a joyful thanks- 
giving to-day. If I should talk thus, you would 
be ready to ask me how I would like to change 
places with you. You would despise me, and I 
would despise myself, for indulging in such cant. 
Your lot is a hard one. The battle of life has gone 
against you — whether by your own fault or by 
hard fortune, it matters not, so far as the fact is 



1^2 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

concerned ; this thanksgiving day finds you locked 
in here, with broken Hves, and wearing the badge 
of crime. God alone knows the secrets of each 
throbbing heart before me, and how it is that you 
have come to this. Fellow-men, children of my 
Father in heaven, putting myself for the moment 
in your place, the bitterness of your lot is real and 
terrible to me. For some of you there is no hap- 
pier prospect for this life than to toil within these 
walls by day, and sleep in yonder cells by night, 
through the weary, slow-dragging years, and then 
to die, with only the hands of hired attendants to 
wipe the death sweat from your brows; and then 
to be put in a convict's cotlin, and taken up on the 
hill yonder, and laid in a lonely grave. My God ! 
this is terrible ! " 

An unexpected dramatic effect followed these 
w^ords. The heads of many of the convicts fell 
forward on their breasts, as if struck with sudden 
paralysis. They were the men who were in for 
life, and the horror of it overcame them. The 
silence w^as broken by sobbings all over the room. 
The officers and visitors on the platform were 
w^eeping. The angel of pity hovered over the 
place, and the glow^ of human sympathy had 
melted those stony hearts. A thousand strong 
men were thrilled with the touch of sympathy, and 
once more the sacred fountain of tears was un- 
sealed. These convicts were men, after all, and 
deep down under the rubbish of their natures 
there was still burning the spark of a humanity 
not yet extinct. It was w^onderful to see the soft- 
ened expression of their faces. Yes, they w^ere 
men, after all, responding to the voice of sympa- 
thy, which had been but too strange to many of 
them all their evil lives. Many of them had inher- 
ited hard conditions; they were literally conceived 




"Many hands xi'crr extruded to i^rasp mine."' 

(173) 



SAN QUENTIN. 175 

in sin and born in iniquity; they grew up in the 
midst of vice. For them, pure and holy hves were 
a moral impossibility. Evil with them was hered- 
itary, organic, and the result of association; it 
poisoned their blood at the start, and stamped 
itself on their features from their cradles. Human 
law, in dealing with these victims of evil circum- 
stance, can make little discrimination. Society 
must protect itself, treating a criminal as a crimi- 
nal. But what will God do with them hereafter? 
Be sure he will do right. Where httle is given, 
little will be required. It shall be better for Tyre 
and Sidon at the day of judgment than for Chora- 
zin and Bethsaida. ''There is no ruin without rem- 
edy, except that which a man makes for himself 
by abusing mercy and throwing away proffered 
opportunity. Thoughts hke these rushed through 
the preacher's mind, as he stood there looking in 
the tear-bedewed faces of these men of crime. A 
fresh tide of pity rose in his heart, that he felt came 
from the heart of the all-pitying One. 

" I do not try to disguise from you or frorn my- 
self the fact that for this life your outlook is not 
bright. But I come to you this day wath a message 
of hope from God our Father. He hath not ap- 
pointed you to wrath. He loves all his children. 
He sent his Son to die for them. Jesus trod the 
paths of pain and drained the cup of sorrow. He 
died as a malefactor, for malefactors. He died for 
me. He died for each one of you. If I knew the 
most broken, the most desolate-hearted, despairing 
man before me, who feels that he is scorned of 
men and forsaken of God, I would go to where he 
sits and put my hand on his head and tell him that 
God hath not appointed him to wrath, but to obtain 
salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for 
us. I would tell him that his Father in heaven 



176 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

loves him still, loves him more than the mother 
that bore him. I would tell him that all the wrongs 
and follies of his past life may from this hour be 
turned into so much capital of a warning expe- 
rience, and that a million of years from to-day he 
may be a child of the Heavenly Father, and an 
heir of glory, having the freedom of the heavens 
and the blessedness of everlasting life. O broth- 
ers, God does love you ! Nothing can ruin ^^ou 
but your own despair. No man has any right to 
despair who has eternity before him. Eternity! 
Long, long eternity! Blessed, blessed eternity! 
That is yours — all of it. It may be a happy eter- 
nity for each one of you. From this moment you 
may begin a better life. There is hope for you, 
and mercy and love and heaven. This is the mes- 
sage I bring you warm from a brother's heart, and 
warm from the heart of Jesus, whose lifeblood was 
poured out for you and me. His loving hand 
opened the gate of mercy and hope to every man. 
The proof is that he died for us. O Son of God, 
take us to thy pitying arms, and lift us up into the 
light that never, never grows dim — into the love 
that fills heaven and eternity! " 

As the speaker sunk into his seat there was a 
silence that was almost painful for a few moments. 
Then the pent-up emotion of the men broke forth 
in sobs that shook their strong frames. Dr. Lucky, 
the prisoner's friend, made a brief, tearful prayer, 
and then the benediction was said, and the service 
was at an end. The men sat still in their seats. 
As we filed out of the chapel, many hands were 
extended to grasp mine, holding it with a clinging 
pressure. I passed out, bearing with me the im- 
pression of an hour I can never forget; and the 
images of those thousand faces are still painted in 
memory. 



TOD ROBINSON. 

THE image of this man of many moods and 
brilliant genius that rises most distinctly to 
my mind is that connected with a little 
prayer meeting in the Minna Street Church, 
San Francisco, one Thursday night. His 
thin, silver locks, his dark, flashing eye, his grace- 
ful pose, and his musical voice are before me. 
His words I have not forgotten, but their electric 
effect must forever be lost to all except the few 
who heard them: ''I have been taunted with the 
reproach that it was only after I was a broken and 
disappointed man in my worldly hopes and aspira- 
tions that I turned to religion. The taunt is just" 
— here he bowed his head, and paused with deep 
emotion — "the taunt is just. I bow my head in 
shame, and take the blow. My earthly hopes 
have faded and fallen one after another. The 
prizes that dazzled my imagination have eluded 
my grasp. I am a broken, gray-haired man, and 
I bring to my God only the remnant of a life. 
But, brethren, it is this very thought that fills 
me with joy and gratitude at this moment — the 
thought that when all else fails God takes us up. 
Just when we need him most, and most feel our 
need of him, he lifts us up out of the depths where 
we have groveled, and presses us to his fatherly 
heart. This is the glory of Christianity. The 
world turns from us w^hen we fail and fall; then it 
is that the Lord draws nigher. Such a religion 
must be from God, for its principles are godlike. 
It does not require much skill or power to steer a 
12 (177) 



178 CALIF-ORNIA SKETCHES. 

ship into port when her timbers are sound, her 
masts all rigged, and her crew at their posts; but 
the pilot that can take an old hulk, rocking on the 
stormy weaves, with its masts torn away, its rigging 
gone, its planks loose and leaking, and bring it 
safe to harbor — that is the pilot for me. Brethren, 
I am that hulk, and Jesus is that Pilot! " 

" Glor}'^ be to Jesus! " exclaimed Father New- 
man, as the speaker, with swimming eyes, radiant 
face, and heaving chest, sunk into his seat. I 
never heard anything finer from mortal lips, but it 
seems cold to me as I read it here. Oratory can- 
not be put on paper. 

He was present once at a camp meeting at the 
famous Tollgate Camp Ground, in Santa Clara 
Valley, near the city of San Jose. It was Sabbath 
morning, just such a one as seldom dawns on this 
earth. The brethren and sisters were gathered 
around '* the stand " under the live oaks for 
a speaking meeting. The morning glory was on 
the summits of the Santa Cruz Mountains, that 
sloped down to the sacred spot, the lovely valley 
smiled under a sapphire sk}^, the birds hopped 
from twig to twig of the a\^erhanging branches that 
scarcely quivered in the still air, and seemed to 
peer inquiringly into the faces of the assembled 
worshipers. The bugle voice of Bailey led in a 
holy song, and Simmons led in prayer that touched 
the eternal throne. One after another, gray-haired 
men and saintly women told when and how they 
began the new life far away on the old hills they 
would never see again, and how they had been led 
and comforted in their pilgrimage. Young disci- 
ples, in the flush of their first love, and the rapture 
of newborn hope, were borne out on a tide of re- 
sistless feeling into that ocean whose waters encir- 
cle the universe. The radiance from the heavenly 



TOD ROBINSON. 179 

hills was reflected from the consecrated encamp- 
ment, and the angels of God hovered over the spot. 
Judge Robinson rose to his feet, and stepped 
into the altar, the sunlight at that moment fall- 
ing upon his face. Every voice was hushed, as, 
with the orator's indelinable magnetism, he drew 
every eye upon him. The pause was thrilling. At 
length he spoke: *' This is a mount of transfigu- 
ration. The transfiguration is on hill and valley, 
on tree and shrub, on grass and liower, on earth 
and sky. It is on your faces that shine like the 
face of Moses when he came down from the awful 
mount where he met Jehovah face to face. The 
same light is on your faces, for here is God's she- 
kinah. This is the gate of heaven. I see its shin- 
ing hosts, I hear the melody of its songs. The 
angels of God encamped with us last night, and 
they linger with us this morning. Tarry with us, 
ye sinless ones, for this is heaven on earth! " 

He paused, with extended arm, gazing upward 
entranced. The scene that followed becfirars de- 
scription. By a simultaneous impulse all rose to 
their feet and pressed toward the speaker with 
awe-struck faces, and when Grandmother Rucker, 
the matriarch of the valley, with luminous face and 
uplifted eyes, broke into a shout, it swelled into a 
melodious hurricane that shook the very hills. He 
ought to have been a preacher. So he said to me 
once: "I felt the impulse and heard the call in 
my early manhood. I conferred with flesh and 
blood, and was disobedient to the heavenly vision. 
I have had some little success at the bar, on the 
hustings, and in legislative halls, but how paltry 
has it been in comparison with the true life and 
high career that miglit have been mine! " 

He was from the hill country of North Carolina, 
and its flavor clung to him to the last. He had his 



l8o CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

gloomy moods, but his heart was fresh as a Blue 
Ridge breeze in May, and his wit bubbled forth 
like a mountain spring. There was no bitterness 
in his satire. The very victim of his thrust enjoyed 
the keenness of the stroke, for there was no poison 
in the weapon. At times he seemed inspired, and 
you thrilled, melted, and soared under the touches 
of this Western Coleridge. He came to my room 
at the Golden Eagle, in Sacramento City, one 
night, and left at two o'clock in the morning. He 
walked the floor and talked, and it was the grand- 
est monologue I ever listened to. One part of it I 
could not forget. It was with reference to preach- 
ers who turn aside from their holy calling to en- 
gage in secular pursuits, or in politics: ** It is 
turning away from angels' food to feed on gar- 
bage. Think of spending a whole life in contem- 
plating the grandest things and working for the 
most glorious ends, instructing the ignorant, con- 
soling the sorrowing, winning the wayward back 
to duty and to peace, pointing the dying to Him 
who is the Light and the Life of men, animating the 
living to seek from the highest motives a holy life 
and a sublime destiny! O it is a life that might 
draw an angel from the skies ! If there is a special 
hell for fools, it should be kept for the man who 
turns aside from a life like this to trade or dig the 
earth or wrangle in a court of law or scramble for 
an oflice." 

He looked at me as he spoke, with flashing eyes 
and curled lip. 

'* That is all true and very fine. Judge, but it 
sounds just a little peculiar as coming from you." 

" I am the very man to say it, for I am the man 
who bitterly sees its truth. Do not make the mis- 
step that I did. A man might well be wifling to live 
on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for 



TOD ROBINSON. l8l 

the privilege of giving all his thoughts to the 
grandest themes, and all his service to the highest 
objects. As a lawyer, m}^ life has been spent in a 
prolonged quarrel about money, land, houses, cat- 
tle, thieving, slandering, murdering, and other vil- 
lainy. The little episodes of politics that have 
given variety to my career have only shown me 
the baseness of human nature and the pettiness of 
human ambition. There are men who w'ill till 
these places and do this work, and who want and 
will choose nothing better. Let them have all the 
good they can get out of such things. But the 
minister of the gospel w^ho comes dow^n from the 
height of his high calling to engage in this scram- 
ble does that which makes devils laugh and angels 
weep." This was the substance of what he said 
on this point. I have never forgotten it. I am 
glad he came to my room that night. What else 
he said I cannot write, but the remembrance of it 
is like to that of a melody that lingers in my soul 
when the music has ceased. 

" I thank you for your sermon to-day; you never 
told a single lie." This was his remark at the 
close of a service in Minna Street one Sunday. 
" What is the meaning of that remark? " 
" That the exaggerations of the pulpit repel 
thousands from the truth. Moderation of state- 
ment is a rare excellence. A deep spiritual insight 
enables a religious teacher to shade his meanings 
where it is required. Deep piety is genius for the 
pulpit. Mediocrity in native endowments, con- 
joined with spiritual stolidity in the pulpit, does 
more harm than all the open apostles of infidelity 
combined. They take the divinity out of religion 
and kill the faith of those who hear them. None 
but inspired men should stand in the pulpit. Re- 
ligion is not in the intellect merely. The world 



l82 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

by wisdom cannot know God. The attempt to find 
out God by the intellect has always been, and 
always must be, the completest of failures. Re- 
ligion is the sphere of the supernatural, and stands 
not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of 
God. It has often happened that men of the first 
order of talent and the highest culture have been 
converted by the preaching of men of weak intel- 
lect and limited education, but who were directty 
taught of God, and had drunk deep from the fount 
of living truth in personal experience of the blessed 
power of Christian faith. It was through the intel- 
lect that the devil seduced the first pair. When we 
rest in the intellect only, we miss God. With the 
heart only can man believe unto righteousness. 
The evidence that satisfies is based on conscious- 
ness. Consciousness is the satisfying demonstra- 
tion. ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man, the things 
which God hath prepared for them that love him. 
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.' 
They can be revealed in no other way." 

Here was the secret he had learned, and that 
had brought a new^ joy and glory into his life as it 
neared the sunset. The great change dated from 
a dark and rainy night as he walked home in Sac- 
ramento City. Not more tangible to Saul of Tar- 
sus was the vision, or more distinctl}^ audible the 
voice that spoke to him on the way to Damascus, 
than was the revelation of Jesus Christ to this law- 
yer of penetrating intellect, large and varied read- 
ing, and sharp perception of human folly and 
weakness. It was a case of conversion in the 
fullest and divinest sense. He never fell from the 
wonder world of grace to which he had been lifted. 
His youth seemed to be renewed, and his life had 
rebloomed, and its winter was turned into spring, 



TOD ROBINSON. 183 

under the touch of llim who maketh all things 
new. He was a new^ man, and he lived in a new 
world. He never failed to attend the class meet- 
in<rs, and in his talks there the flashes of his genius 
set reh<nous truths in new lights, and the little band 
of Methodists were treated to bursts of fervid elo- 
quence, such as might kindle the Hstening thou- 
sands of metropolitan churches into admiration, or 
melt them into tears. On such occasions I could 
not help regretting anew that the world had lost 
what this man might have wrought had his path in 
Hfe taken a different direction at the start. He 
died suddenly, and when in the city of Los Ange- 
les I read the telegram announcing his death I 
felt, mingled with the pain at the loss of a friend, 
exultation that before there w^as any reaction in 
his religious life his mighty soul had found a con- 
genial home amid the supernal glories and subhme 
joys of the w^orld of spirits. The moral of this 
man's life will be seen by him for w^hom this im- 
perfect sketch has been penciled. 



JACK WHITE. 



THE only thing white about him was his 
name. He was a Piute Indian, and Piutes 
are neither white nor pretty. There is 
onl}" one being in human shape ugher than 
a Piute " buck," and that is a Piute squaw. 
One I saw at the Sink of the Humboldt haunts me 
yet. Her hideous face, begrimed with dirt and 
smeared with yellow paint, bleared and leering 
eyes, and horrid long, flapping breasts — ugh ! it 
was a sight to make one feel sick. A degraded 
woman is the saddest spectacle on earth. Shakes- 
peare knew what he was doing when he made the 
witches in Macbeth of the feminine gender. But 
as you look at them you almost forget that these 
Piute hags are women. They seem a cross between 
brute and devil. The unity of the human race is 
a fact which I accept; but some of our brothers 
and sisters are far gone from original loveliness. 
If Eve could see these Piute women, she would 
not be in a hurry to claim them as her daughters ; 
and Adam would feel like disowning some of his 
sons. As it appears to me, however, these repul- 
sive savages furnish an argument in support of two 
fundamental facts of Christianity. One fact is, 
God did indeed make of one blood all the nations 
of the earth ; the other is the fact of the fall and 
depravity of the human race. This unspeakable 
ugliness of these Indians is owing to their evil liv- 
ing. Dirty as they are, the little Indian children 
are not at all repulsive in expression. A boy of 
ten years, who stood half naked, shivering in the 
(184) 



JACK WHITE. 185 

wind, with his bow and arrows, had well-shaped 
features and a pleasant expression of countenance, 
with just a little of the look of animal cunning that 
belongs to all wild tribes. The ugliness grows on 
these Indians fearfully fast when it sets in. The 
brutalities of the lives they lead stamp themselves 
on their faces; and no other animal on earth 
equals in ugliness the animal called man, when he 
is nothinjj but an animal. 

There was a mystery about Jack White's early 
life. He was born in the sage brush desert beyond 
the Sierras, and, like all Indian babies, doubtless 
had a hard time at the outset. A Christian's pig 
or puppy is as well cared for as a Piute papoose. 
Jack was found in a deserted Indian camp in the 
mountains. He had been left to die, and was 
taken charge of by the kind-hearted John M. White, 
who was then digging for gold in the northern 
mines. He and his good Christian wife had mercy 
on the little Indian boy that looked up at them so 
pitifully with his wondering black eyes. At first 
he had the frightened and bewildered look of a 
captured wild creature, but he soon began to be 
more at ease. He acquired the English language 
slowly, and never did lose the peculiar accent of 
his tribe. The miners called him Jack White, not 
knowing any other name for him. 

Moving to the beautiful San Ramon Valley, not 
far from the Bay of San Francisco, the Whites 
took Jack with them. They taught him the lead- 
ing doctrines and facts of the Bible, and made him 
useful in domestic service. He grew and thrived. 
Broad-shouldered, muscular, and straight as an 
arrow, Jack was admired for his strength and agil- 
ity by the white boys with whom he was brought 
into contact. Though not quarrelsome, he had a 
steady courage that, iDacked by his great strength, 



l86 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

inspired respect and insured good treatment from 
them. Growing up amid these influences, his 
features were softened into a civilized expression, 
and his tawny face w^as not unpleasing. The 
heavy under jaw and square forehead gave him an 
appearance of hardness which was greatly relieved 
by the honest look out of his eyes, and the smile 
w^hich now and then would slowl}" creep over his 
face, like the movement of the shadow of a thin 
cloud on a calm day in summer. An Indian smiles 
deliberately and in a dignified way — at least Jack 
did. 

I first knew Jack at Santa Rosa, of which beau- 
tiful town his patron, Mr. Wiiite, was then the 
marshal. Jack came to my Sunday school, and 
was taken into a class of about twenty boys taught 
by myself. They were the noisy element of the 
school, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age — 
too large to show the docility of the little lads, but 
not old enough to have attained the self-command 
and self-respect that come later in life. Though 
he was much older than any of them, and heavier 
than his teacher, this class suited Jack. The white 
boys all liked him, and he liked me. We had 
grand times with that class. The only way to 
keep them in order was to keep them very busy. 
The plan of having them answer in concert was 
adopted with decided results. It kept them awake 
— and the whole school with them, for California 
boys have strong lungs. Twenty boys speaking 
all at once, with eager excitement and flashing 
eyes, waked the drowsiest drone in the room. A 
gentle hint was given now and then to take a little 
lower key. In these lessons Jack's deep guttural 
tones came in with marked effect, and it was de- 
lightful to see how he enjoyed it all. And the 
singing made his swarthy features glow with pleas- 



JACK WHITE. 187 

ure, though he rarely joined in it, having some 
misgiving as to the melody of his voice. 

The truths of the gospel took strong hold of 
Jack's mind, and his inquiries indicated a deep in- 
terest in the matter of religion. I was therefore 
not surprised when, during a protracted meeting 
in the town, Jack became one of the converts; but 
there was surprise and delight among the brethren 
at the class meeting when Jack rose in his place 
and told what great things the Lord had done for 
him, dwelling with special emphasis on the words, 
" 1 am happy, because I know Jesus takes my sins 
away — I know he takes my sins away." His voice 
melted into softness, and a tear trickled down his 
cheek as he spoke; and when Dan Duncan, the 
leader, crossed over the room and grasped his 
hand in a burst of joy, there was a glad chorus of 
rejoicing Methodists over Jack White, the Piute 
convert. 

Jack never missed a service at the church, and 
in the social meetings he never failed to tell the 
story of his new-born joy and hope, and always 
with thrilling effect, as he repeated with trembling 
voice, " I am happy, because I know Jesus takes 
my sins away." Sin was a reality with Jack, and 
the pardon of sin the most wonderful of all facts. 
He never tired of telling it ; it opened a new world 
to him, a world of light and joy. Jack White in 
the class meeting or prayer meeting, with beaming 
face and moistened eyes and softened voice, tell- 
ing of the love of Jesus, seemed almost of a differ- 
ent race from the wretched Piutes of the Sierras 
and sage brush. 

Jack's baptism was a great event. It was by im- 
mersion, the first baptism of the kind I ever per- 
formed, and almost the last. Jack had been 
talked to on the subject by some zealous brethren 



l88 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

of another "persuasion," who magnified that mode ; 
and though he was willing to do as I advised in the 
matter, he was evidently a little inclined to the 
more spectacular way of receiving the ordinance. 
Mrs. White suggested that it might save future 
trouble and '' spike a gun." So Jack, with four 
others, was taken down to Santa Rosa Creek, that 
went . rippling and sparkling along the southern 
edge of the town, and duly baptized in the name 
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost. A great crowd covered the bridge just 
below, and the banks of the stream; and when 
Wesley Mock, the Asaph of Santa Rosa Metho- 
dism, struck up 

O happy day that fixed my choice 
On thee, my Saviour and my God, 

and the chorus, 

Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away, 

was swelled by hundreds of voices, it was a glad 
moment for Jack White and all of us. Reli- 
giously, it was a warm time ; but the water was 
very cold, it being one of the chilliest days I ever 
felt in that genial climate. 

"You were rather awkward. Brother Fitzger- 
ald, in immersing those persons," said my stahvart 
friend. Elder John McCorkle, of the ** Christian " 
(or Campbellite) Church, who had critically, but 
not unkindly, watched the proceedings from the 
bridge. " If you will send for me the next time, 
I will do it for you," he added pleasantly. 

I fear it was awkwardly done, for the water was 
very cold, and a shivering man cannot be very 
graceful in his movements. I would have done 
better in a baptistery, with warm water and a rub- 
ber suit. But of all the persons I have welcomed 
into the Church during my ministry, the reception 



JACK WHITE. 189 

of no one has given me more joy than that of Jack 
White, the Piute Indian. 

Tack's heart yearned for his own people. He 
wanted to tell them of Jesus, who could take away 
their sins; and perhaps his Indian instmct made 
him long for the freedom of the hills. 

" I am going to my people," he said to me; *' I 
want to tell them of Jesus. Will you pray for 
me?" he added, with a quiver in his voice and a 
heaving chest. 

He went away, and I have never seen him smce. 
Where he is now, I know not. I trust I may meet 
him on Mount Sion, with the harpers harping with 
their harps, and singing, as it were, a new song 

before the throne. '^ j -, 

Postscript.— Since this sketch was penciled, the 
Rev C. Y. Rankin, in a note dated Santa Rosa, 
California, August 3, 1880, says: *^ Mrs. White 
asked me to send you word of the peaceful death 
of Jack White (Indian). He died trusting in 
Jesus." 



CAMILLA CAIN. 



SHE was from Baltimore, and had the fair 
face and gentle voice peculiar to most Bal- 
timore women. Her organization was del- 
icate, but elastic — one of the sort that bends 
easily, but is hard to break. In her eyes 
was that look of wistful sadness so often seen in 
holy women of her type. Timid as a faAvn, in the 
class meeting she spoke of her love to Jesus and 
delight in his service in a voice low and a little 
hesitating, but with strangely thrilling effect. The 
meetings were sometimes held in her own little 
parlor in the cottage on Dupont Street, and then 
we always felt that we had met where the Master 
himself was a constant and welcome guest. She 
was put into the crucible. For more than fifteen 
years she suffered unceasing and intense bodily 
pain. Imprisoned in her sick chamber, she fought 
her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs 
lost their use, the patient face waxed more wan, 
and the traces of agony were on it always; the 
soft, loving eyes were often tear-washed. The 
fires were hot, and they burned on through the 
long, long years without respite. The mystery of 
it all was too deep for me ; it was too deep for her. 
But somehow it does seem that the highest suffer 
most. 

The sign of rank in nature 

Is capacity for pain, 
And the anguish of the singer 

Makes the sweetness of the strain. 

The victory of her faith was complete. If the 
inevitable why? sometimes was in her thought, no 
(190) 



CAMILLA CAIN. I9I 

shadow of distrust ever fell upon her heart. Her 
sick room was the quietest, brightest spot in all the 
city. How often did I go thither weary and faint 
with the roughness of the way, and leave feeling 
that 1 had heard the voices and inhaled the odors 
of paradise! A little talk, a psalm, and then a 
prayer, during which the room seemed to be filled 
with angel presences; after which the thin, pale 
face was radiant with the hght reflected from our 
Immanuel's face. I often went to see her, not so 
much to convey as to get a blessing. Her heart 
was kept fresh as a rose of Sharon in the dew of 
the morning. The children loved to be near her; 
and the pathetic face of the dear crippled boy, the 
pet of the family, was always brighter in her pres- 
ence. Thrice death came into the home circle with 
its shock and mighty wrenchings of the heart, but 
the victory was not his, but hers. Neither death 
nor life could separate her from the love of her 
Lord. She was one of the elect. The elect are 
those who know, having the witness in themselves. 
She was conqueror of both — life with its pain and 
its weariness, death with its terror and its tragedy. 
She did not endure merely, she triumphed. Borne 
on the wings of a mighty faith, her soul was at 
times lifted above all sin and temptation and pain, 
and the sweet, abiding peace swelled into an ec- 
stasy of sacred joy. Her swimming eyes and rapt 
loOiC told the unutterable secret. She has crossed 
over the narrow stream on whose margin she lin- 
gered so long; and there was joy on the other side 
when the gentle, patient, holy Camilla Cain joined 
the glorified throng. 

O thoui^h oft depressed and lonely, 

All my fears are laid aside, 
If I but remember only 

ijuch as these have lived and diedt 



CORRALED 



SO you were corraled last night?" 
This was the remark of a friend whom I 
met in the streets of Stockton the morning 
after my adventure. I knew what the ex- 
pression meant as applied to cattle, but I 
had never heard it before in reference to a human 
being. Yes, I had been corraled; and this is how 
it happened: 

It was in the old days, before there were any 
railroads in California. With a wiry, clean-limbed 
pinto horse, I undertook to drive from Sacramento 
City to Stockton one day. It was in the winter 
season, and the clouds were sweeping up from the 
southwest, the snow-crested Sierras hidden from 
sight by dense masses of vapor boiling at their 
bases and massed against their sides. The roads 
were heavy from the effects of previous rains, and 
the plucky little pinto sweated as he pulled through 
the long stretches of black adobe mud. A cold 
wind struck me in the face, and the ride was a 
dreary one from the start. But I pushed on con- 
fidently, having faith in the spotted mustang, de- 
spite the evident fact that he had lost no little of 
the spirit with which he dashed out of town at 
starting. When a genuine mustang flags it is a 
serious business. The hardiness and endurance 
of this breed of horses almost exceed belief. 

Toward night a cold rain began to fall, driving 
in my face with the head wind. Still man}- a long 
mile lay between me and Stockton. Darkness 
(192) 



CORRALED. 



^03 



came on, and it was dark indeed. The outline of 
the horse in front could not be seen, and the flat 
country through which I was driving was a great 
black sea of night. I trusted to the instinct of the 
horse, and moved on. The bells of a wa^on team 
meeting me fell upon my ear. I called out: 
" Halloo there! " 

''What's the matter?" answered a heavy voice 
through the darkness. 

*'Am I in the road to Stockton? and can I get 
there to-night? " 

"You are in the road, but you will never find 
your way such a night as this. It is ten good 
miles from here ; you have several bridges to cross. 
You had better stop at the first house you come 
to, about half a mile ahead. I am going to strike 
camp myself." 

I thanked my adviser, and went on, hearing the 
sound of the tinkling bells, but unable to see any- 
thing. In a little while I saw a light ahead, and 
was glad to see it. Driving up in front and halt- 
ing, I repeated the traveler's "Halloo" several 
times, and at last got a response in a hoarse, gruff 
voice. 

" I am belated on my way to Stockton, and am 
cold and tired and hungry. Can I get shelter with 
you for the night? " 

" You may try it if you want to," answered the 
unmusical voice abruptly. 

In a few moments a man appeared to take the 
horse, and, taking my satchel in hand, I went into 
the house. The first thing that struck mv atten- 
tion on entering the room was a big log fire, which 
I was glad to see, for I was wet and very cold. 
Taking a chair in the corner, I looked around. 
The scene that presented itself was not reassuring. 
The main feature of the room was a bar, with an 
13 



194 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

ample supply of barrels, demijohns, bottles, tum- 
blers, and all the et cceteras. Behind the counter 
stood the proprietor, a burly fellow with a buffalo 
neck, fair skin, and blue eyes, with a frightful 
scar across his left underjaw and neck. His shirt 
collar was open, exposing a huge chest, and his 
sleeves were rolled up above the elbows. I noticed 
also that one of his hands was minus all the fingers 
but the half of one — the result, probabl}^ of some 
desperate encounter. I did not like the appear- 
ance of my landlord, and he eyed me in a way 
that led me to fear that he liked my looks as little 
as I did his ; but the claims of other guests soon 
diverted his attention from me, and I was left to 
get warm and make further observations. At a 
table in the middle of the room several hard-look- 
ing fellows were betting at cards, amid terrible 
profanit}' and frequent drinks of whisky. They 
cast inquiring and not very friendly glances at me 
from time to time, once or twice exchanging whis- 
pers and giggling. As their play went on, and 
tumbler after tumbler of whisky was drunk by 
them, they became more boisterous. Threats w^ere 
made of using pistols and knives, with which they 
all seemed to be heavily armed; and one sottish- 
looking brute actually drew forth a pistol, but was 
disarmed in no gentle way by the big-limbed land- 
lord. The profanit}" and other foul language were 
horrible. Many of my readers have no conception 
of the brutishness of men when whisky and Satan 
have full possession of them. In the midst of a 
volley of oaths and terrible imprecations by one of 
the most violent of the set, there was a faint gleam 
of lingering decency exhibited by one of his com- 
panions: *' Blast it, Dick, don't citss so loud — 
that fellow in the corner there is a preacherj " 
There was some potency in *'the cloth" even 



CORRALED. 195 

there. How he knew my calHng I do not know. 
The remark directed particular attention to me, 
and I became unpleasantly conspicuous. Scowling 
glances were bent upon me by two or three of the 
ruffians, and one fellow made a profane remark 
not at all complimentary to my vocation, whereat 
there was some coarse laughter. In the meantime 
I was conscious of being very hungry. My hun- 
ger, like that of a boy, is a very positive thing — at 
least it was very much so in those days. Glancing 
toward the maimed and scarred giant who stood 
behind the bar, I found he was gazing at me with 
a fixed expression. 

" Can I get something to eat? I am very hun- 
gry, sir," I said in my blandest tones. 

" Yes, we've plenty of cold goose, and maybe 
Pete can pick up something else for you, if he is 
sober and in a good humor. Come this way." 

I followed him through a narrow passageway, 
which led to a long, low-ceiled room, along nearly 
the whole length -of which was stretched a table, 
around which were placed rough stools for the 
rough men about the place. 

Pete, the cook, came in, and the head of the 
house turned me over to him, and returned to his 
duties behind the bar. From the noise of the up- 
roar going on, his presence was doubtless needed. 
Pete set before me a large roasted wild goose, 
not badly cooked, with bread, milk, and the inev- 
itable cucumber pickles. The knives and forks 
were not very bright — in fact, they had been sub- 
jected to influences promotive of oxidation; and 
the dishes were not free from signs of former use. 
Nothing could be said against the tablecloth — there 
was no tablecloth there. But the goose was fat, 
brown, and tender; and a hungry man defers his 
criticisms until he is done eating. That is what I 



196 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

did. Pete evidently regarded me with curiosity. 
He was about fifty years of age, and had the look 
of a man who had come down in the world. His 
face bore the marks of the effects of strong drink, 
but it w^as not a bad face ; it was more weak than 
wicked. 

*'Are you a preacher? " he asked. 

'' I thought so," he added, after getting my an- 
swer to his question. *' Of what persuasion are 
you? " he further inquired. 

When I told him I was a Methodist, he said 
quickly and with some warmth : " I was sure of it. 
This is a rough place for a man of your calhng. 
Would you like some eggs? we've plenty on hand. 
And maybe you would like a cup of coffee," he 
added, with increasing hospitality. 

I took the eggs, but decHned the c-offee, not 
likincr the looks of the cups and saucers, and not 
caring to wait. 

*' I used to be a Methodist myself," said Pete, 
with a sort of choking in his throat, *' but bad luck 
and bad company have brought me down to this. 
I have a family in Iowa, a wife and four children. 
I guess they think I'm dead, and sometimes I wish 
I was." Pete stood by my chair, actually crying. 
The sight of a Methodist preacher brought up old 
times. He told me his story. He had come to 
California hoping to make a fortune in a hurry, 
but had only ill luck from the start. His prospect- 
ings were always failures, his partners cheated 
him, his health broke down, his courage gave way, 
and — he faltered a little, and then spoke it out — 
he took to whisk}^, and then the worst came. '' I 
have come down to this — cooking for a lot of 
roughs at five dollars a week and all the whisky 1 
want. It would have been better for me if I had 
died when I was in the hospital at San Andreas." 




/ used to be a Methodist myself,'' said Pete xvitli a sort oj 
choking iu his throat^'' 

(197) 



CORRALED. ^99 

Poor Pete! he had indeed touched bottom. 
But he had a heart and a conscience still, and my 
own heart warmed toward my poor backslidden 
brother. 

" You are not a lost man yet. You are worth a 
thousand dead men. You can get out of this, and 
you must. You must act the part of a brave man, 
and not be any longer a coward. Bad luck and 
lack of success are a disgrace to no man. There 
is where you went wrong. It was cowardly to give 
up and not write to your family, and then take to 
whisk}^" 

"I know all that, Elder. There is no better 
little woman on earth than my wife " — Pete choked 
up again. 

" You write to her this very night, and go back 
to her and your children just as soon as you can 
get the money to pay your way. Act the man, 
and all will come right yet. I have writing mate- 
rials here in my satchel — pen, ink, paper, envel- 
opes, stamps, ever3^thing; I am an editor, and go 
fixed up for writing." 

The letter was written, I acting as Pete's aman- 
uensis, he pleading that he was a poor scribe at 
best, and that his nerves were too. unsteady for 
such work. Taking my advice, he made a clean 
breast of the whole matter, throwing himself on 
the forgiveness of the wife whom he had so 
shamefully neglected, and promising, by the help 
of God, to make all the amends possible in time to 
come. The letter was duty directed, sealed, and 
stamped, and Pete looked as if a great weight had 
been lifted from his soul. He had made me a fire 
in the little stove, saying it was better than the 
barroom, in which opinion I was fully agreed. 

'* There is no place for you to sleep to-night 
without corraling you with the fellows ; there is 



20O CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

but one bedroom, and there are fourteen bunks 
in it." 

I shuddered at the prospect — fourteen bunks in 
one small room, and those whisk3-sodden, loud- 
cursing card players to be my roommates for the 
night ! 

" I prefer sitting here by the stove all night," I 
said; '' I can employ most of the time writing, if I 
can have a light." 

Pete thought a moment, looked grave, and then 
said: " That won't do, Elder ; those fellows would 
take offense, and make trouble. Several of them 
are out now goose hunting; they will be coming in 
at all hours from now till daybreak, and it won't 
do for them to find you sitting up here alone. The 
best thing for you to do is to go in and take one of 
those bunks; you needn't take off anything but 
your coat and boots, and" — here he lowered his 
voice, looking about him as he spoke — ^'if yoti 
have any money about, keep it next to yoitr bodyy 

The last words were spoken with peculiar em- 
phasis. 

Taking the advice given me, I took up my bag- 
gage and followed Pete to the room where I was 
to spend the night. Ugh ! it was dreadful. The 
single window in the room was nailed down, and 
the air was close and foul. The bunks were damp 
and dirty be3'ond belief, grimed with foulness and 
reeking with ill odors. This was being corraled. 
I turned to Pete, saying: '* I can't stand this; I 
will go back to the kitchen." 

"You had better follow my advice, Elder," 
said he very gravely. " I know things about here 
better than you do. It's rough, but you had better 
stand it." 

And I did; being corraled, I had to stand it. 
That fearful night! The drunken fellows stag- 



CORRALED. 20I 

gered in one by one, cursing and hiccoughing, 
until every bunk was occupied. They muttered 
oaths in their sleep, and their stertorous breathings 
made a concert fit for Tartarus. The sickenintr 
odors of whisky, onions, and tobacco filled the 
room. I lay there and longed for daylight, which 
seemed as if it never would come. I thought of 
the descriptions I had heard and read of hell, and 
just then the most vivid conception of its horror 
was to be shut up forever with the aggregated im- 
purity of the universe. By contrast I tried to think 
of that city of God into which, it is said, " there 
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, 
neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or mak- 
eth a lie: but they which are written in the 
Lamb's book of life." But thoughts of heaven 
did not suit the situation ; it was more suggestive 
of the other place. The horror of being shut up 
eternally in hell as the companion of lost spirits 
was intensified by the experience and reflections 
of that night when I was corraled. 

Day came at last. I rose with the first streaks 
of tlie dawn, and, not having much toilet to make, 
I was soon out of doors. Never did I breathe the 
pure, fresh air with such profound pleasure and 
gratitude. I drew deep inspirations, and, opening 
my coat and vest, let the breeze that swept up the 
valley blow upon me unrestricted. How bright 
was the face of nature, and how sweet her breath, 
after the sights, sounds, and smells of the night! 

I did not wait for breakfast, but had my pinto 
and buggy brought out, and, bidding Pete good- 
bye, hurried on to Stockton. 

" So you were corraled last night? " was the re- 
mark of a friend, quoted at the beginning of this 
true sketch. " What was the name of the propri- 
etor of the house? " 



202 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

I gave him the name. 

" Dave W ? " he exclaimed with fresh aston- 
ishment. " That is the roughest place in the San 
Joaquin Valley. Several men have been killed 
and robbed there during the last two or three 
years." 

I trust Pete got back safe to his wife and chil- 
dren in Iowa, and I trust I may never be corraled 
again. 



THE RABBI. 

SEATED in his library, enveloped in a faded 
figured gown, a black velvet cap on his 
massive head, there was an Oriental look 
about him that arrested your attention at 
once. Power and gentleness, childlike 
simphcity and scholarliness, were curiously min- 
gled in this man. His library was a reflex of its 
owner. In it were books that the great public li- 
braries of the world could not match— black-letter 
folios that were almost as old as the printing art, 
illuminated volumes that were once the pride and 
joy of men who had been in their graves many 
generations, rabbinical lore, theology, magic, and 
great volumes of Hebrew Hterature that looked, 
when placed beside a modern book, like an old 
ducal palace alongside a gingerbread cottage of 
to-day. I do not think he ever felt at home amid 
the hurry and rush of San Francisco. He could 
not adjust himself to the people. He was devout; 
they were intensely worldly. He thundered this 
sentence from the teacher's desk in the synagogue 
one morning: '* O ye Jews of San Francisco, you 
have so fully given yourselves up to material things 
that you are losing the very instinct of immortality. 
Your only idea of rehgion is to acquire the He- 
brew language, and you dont know that!'' His 
port and voice were like those of one of the old 
Hebrew prophets. EHjah himself was not more 
fearless. Yet how deep w^as his love for his race ! 
Jeremiah was not more tender when he wept for 
the slain of the daughter of his people. His re- 
proofs were resented, and he had a taste of perse- 

(203) 



204 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

cution ; but the Jews of San Francisco understood 
him at last. The poor and the Httle children knew 
him from the start. He lived mostly among his 
books, and in his school for poor children, w^hom 
he taught without charge. His habits were so 
simple and his bodily wants so few that it cost 
him but a trifle to live. When the synagogue 
frowned on him, he was as independent as Elijah 
at the brook Cherith. It is hard to starve a man 
to whom crackers and water are a royal feast. 

His belief in God and in the supernatural was 
startlingly vivid. The Voice that spoke from Si- 
nai was still audible to him, and the Arm that de- 
livered Israel he saw still stretched out over the 
nations. The miracles of the Old Testament were 
as real to him as the premiership of Disraeli or 
the financiering of the Rothschilds. There was, at 
the same time, a vein of rationalism that ran 
through his thought and speech. We were speak- 
ing one day on the subject of miracles, and with 
his usual energy of manner he said: " There was 
no need of any literal angel to shut the mouths of 
the lions to save Daniel; the awful holiness of the 
p7'ophet was enough. There was so much of God 
in him that the savage creatures submitted to him 
as they did to unsinning Adam. Man's dominion 
over nature was broken by sin, but in the golden 
age to come it will be restored. A man in full 
communion with God wields a divine power in 
every sphere that he touches." 

His face glowed as he spoke, and his voice was 
subdued into a solemnity of tone that told how his 
reverent and adoring soul was thrilled with this 
vision of the coming glory of redeemed humanity. 

He new the New Testament by heart, as well 
as the Old. The sayings of Jesus were often on 
his lips. 



THE RABBI. 205 

One day, in a musing, half-soliloquizing way, I 
heard him say: "It is wonderful! wonderful! a 
Hebrew peasant from the hills of Galilee, without 
learning, noble birth, or power, subverts all the 
philosophies of the world, and makes himself the 
central ligure of all history. It is wonderful!" 
He half whispered the words, and his eyes had 
the introspective look of a man who is thinking 
deeply. 

He came to see me at our cottage on Post Street 
one morning before breakfast. In grading a street, 
a house in which I had lived and had the ill luck 
to own, on Pine Street, had been undermined, and 
toppled over into the street below, falling on the 
slate roof and breaking all to pieces. He came 
to tell me of it, and to extend his sympathy. "I 
thought I would come first, so you might get the 
bad news from a friend rather than a stranger. 
You have lost a house, but it is a small matter. 
Your little boy there might have put out his eye 
with a pair of scissors, or he might have swal- 
lowed a pin and lost his life. There are many 
things constantly taking place that are harder to 
bear than the loss of a house." 

Man}^ other wise words did the Rabbi speak, 
and before he left I felt that a house was indeed a 
small thing to grieve over. 

He spoke with charming freedom and candor 
of all sorts of people. *' Of Christians, the Unita- 
rians have the best heads, and the Methodists the 
best hearts. The Roman Catholics hold the 
masses, because they give their people plenty of 
form. The masses will never receive truth in its 
simple essence; they must have it in a way that 
will make it digestible and assimilable, just as 
their stomachs demand bread and meats and fruits, 
not their extracts or distilled essences, for daily 



206 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

food. As to Judaism, it is on the eve of great 
changes. What these changes will be I know not, 
except that I am sure the God of our fathers will 
fulfill his promise to Israel. This generation will 
probably see great things." 

" Do you mean the literal restoration of the 
Jews to Palestine? " 

He looked at me with an intense gaze, and has- 
tened not to answer. At last he spoke slowly: 
"When the perturbed elements of religious 
thought crystallize into clearness and enduring 
forms, the chosen people will be one of the chief 
factors in reaching that final solution of the prob- 
lems w^hich convulse this age." 

He was one of the speakers at the great Mor- 
tara indignation meeting in San Francisco. The 
speech of the occasion w^as that of Col. Baker, 
the orator w^ho went to Oregon, and in a single 
campaign magnetized the Oregonians so com- 
pletely by his splendid eloquence that, passing by 
all their old party leaders, they sent him to the 
United States Senate. No one who heard Baker's 
peroration that night will ever forget it. His dark 
eyes blazed, his form dilated, and his voice was 
like a bugle in battle. " They tell us that the 
Jew^ is accursed of God. This has been the 
plea of the bloody tyrants and robbers that 
oppressed and plundered them during the long 
ages of their exile and agony. But the Al- 
mighty God executes his own judgments. Woe 
to him who presumes to wield his thunderbolts ! 
They fall in blasting, consuming vengeance upon 
his owm head. God deals with his chosen people 
in judgment; but he says to men: 'Touch them at 
your peril ! ' They that spoil them shall be for a 
spoil; they that carried them away captive shall 
themselves go into captivity. The Assyrian smote 



THE RABBI. 207 

the Jew, and where is the proud Assyrian Empire? 
Rome ground them under her iron heel, and where 
is the empire of the Caesars? Spain smote the 
Jew, and where is her glory? The desert sands 
cover the site of Babylon the Great. The power 
that hurled the hosts of Titus against the holy city, 
Jerusalem, was shivered to pieces. The banner 
of Spain, that floated in triumph over half the 
world, and fluttered in the breezes of every sea, 
is now the emblem of a glory that is gone, and 
the ensign of a power that has waned. The Jews 
are in the hands of God. He has dealt with them 
in judgment, but they are still the children of 
promise. The day of their long exile shall end, 
and they will return to Zion with songs and ever- 
lasting joy upon their heads! " The words were 
something like these, but who could picture Ba- 
ker's oratory? As well try to paint a storm in 
the tropics. Real thunder and lightning cannot 
be put on canvas. 

The Rabbi made a speech, and it was the 
speech of a man who had come from his books 
and prayers. He made a tender appeal for the 
mother and father of the abducted Jewish boy, 
and argued the question as calmly, and in as 
sweet a spirit, as if he had been talking over an 
abstract question in his study. The vast crowd 
looked upon that strange figure with a sort of 
pleased wonder, and the Rabbi seemed almost 
unconscious of their presence. He was as free 
from self-consciousness as a little child, and many 
a Gentile heart warmed that night to the simple- 
hearted sage who stood before them pleading for 
the rights of human nature. 

The old man was often very sad. In such 
moods he would come round to our cottage on 
Post Street, and sit with us until late at night, un- 



208 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

burdening his aching heart, and relaxing by de- 
grees into a playfulness that was charming from 
its very awkwardness. He would bring little pic- 
ture books for the children, pat them on their 
heads, and praise them. They were always glad 
to see him, and w^ould nestle round him lovingly. 
We all loved him, and felt glad in the thought 
that he left our little circle lighter at heart. He 
lived alone. Once, w^hen I playfully spoke to 
him of matrimon}^ he smiled quietly, and said: 
"No, no; my books and my poor school chil- 
dren are enough for me." 

He died suddenly and alone. He had been out 
one windy night visiting the poor, came home sick, 
and before morning was in that world of spirits 
which was so real to his faith, and for which he 
longed. He left his little fortune of a few thou- 
sand dollars to the poor of his native village of 
Posen, in Poland. And thus passed from Califor- 
nia life Dr. Julius Eckman, the Rabbi. 



AH LEE. 

HE was the sunniest of Mongolians. The 
Chinaman, under favorable conditions, 
is not without a sly sense of humor of 
his peculiar sort; but to American eyes 
there is nothing very pleasant in his an- 
gular and smileless features. The manner of his 
contact with many Californians is not calculated 
to evoke mirthfulness. The brickbat may be a 
good political argument in the hands of a hood- 
lum, but it does not make its target playful. To 
the Chinaman in America the situation is new and 
grave, and he looks sober and holds his peace. 
Even the funny-looking, be-cued little Chinese 
children wear a look of solemn inquisitiveness, as 
they toddle along the streets of San Francisco by 
the side of their queer-looking mothers. In his 
own land, overpopulated and misgoverned, the 
Chinaman has a hard fight for existence. In 
these United States his advent is regarded some- 
what in the same spirit as that of the seventeen- 
year locusts or the cotton worm. The history of 
a people may be read in their physiognomy. The 
monotony of Chinese life during these thousands 
of years is reflected in the dull, monotonous faces 
of Chinamen. 

Ah Lee was an exception. His skin was almost 
fair, his features almost Caucasian in their regu- 
larity; his dark eye lighted up with a peculiar 
brightness, and there was a remarkable buoyanc}^ 
and glow about him every wa\^ He was about 
twenty years old. How long he h?.d been in Cali- 
14 (209) 



2IO CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

fornia I know not. When he came into my office 
to see me the first time, he rushed forward and 
impulsively grasped my hand, saying: "My name 
Ah Lee — you Doctor Plitzjellie? " 

That was the way my name sounded as he spoke 
it. I was glad to see him, and told him so. 

" You makee Christian newspaper? Youtalkee 
Jesus? Mr. Taylor tellee me. Me Christian — me 
love Jesus." 

Yes, Ah Lee was a Christian; there could be 
no doubt about that. I have seen many happy 
converts, but none happier than he. He was not 
merely happy; he was ecstatic. 

The story of the mighty change was a simple 
one, but thrilling. Near Vacaville, the former 
seat of the Pacific Methodist College, in Solano 
County, lived the Rev. Iry Taylor, a member of 
the Pacific Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. Mr. Taylor was a praying man, 
and he had a praying wife. Ah Lee was em- 
ployed as a domestic in the family. His curiosity 
was first excited in regard to family prayers. He 
wanted to know what it all meant. The Taylors 
explained. The old, old story took hold of Ah 
Lee. He was put to thinking and then to praying. 
The idea of the forcriveness of sins filled him with 
wonder and longing. He hung with breathless 
interest upon the word of the Lord, opening to 
him a world of new thought. The tide of feeling 
bore him on, and at the foot of the cross he found 
what he souo;ht. 

Ah Lee was converted — converted as Paul, as 
Augustine, as Wesley, were converted. He was 
born into a new life that was as real to him as 
his consciousness was real. This psychological 
change will be understood by some of m}^ readers; 
others may regard it as they do any other inexpli- 



AH LEE. 211 

cable phenomenon in that mysterious inner world 
of the human soul, in which are lived the real 
lives of us all. In Ah Lee's heathen soul was 
wrought the gracious wonder that makes joy 
among the angels of God. 

The young Chinese disciple, it is to be feared, 
got little sympathy outside the Taylor household 
and a few others. The right-hand of Christian 
fellowship was \^'ithheld by many, or extended in 
a cold, half-reluctant way. But it mattered not to 
Ah Lee; he had his own heaven. Coldness was 
wasted on him. The light within him brightened 
ever3'thing without. 

Ah Lee became a frequent visitor to our cottage 
on the hill. He always came and went rejoicing. 
The Gospel of John was his daily study and de- 
light. To his ardent and receptive nature it was 
a diamond mine. Two things he wanted to do: 
he had a strong desire to translate his favorite 
Gospel into Chinese, and to lead his parents to 
Christ. When he spoke of his father and mother 
his voice would soften, his eyes moisten with ten- 
derness. "I go back to China and tellee my 
fader and mudder allee good news," he said, with 
beaming face. 

This peculiar development of filial reverence 
and affection among the Chinese is a hopeful 
feature of their national life. It furnishes a solid 
basis for a strong Christian nation. The weak- 
ening of this sentiment weakens religious suscep- 
tibility; its destruction is spiritual death. The 
worship of ancestors is idolatry, but it is that form 
of it nearest akin to the worship of the Heavenly 
Father. The honoring of the father and mother 
on earth is the commandment with promise, and 
it is the promise of this life and of life everlastmg. 
There is an interblending of human and divine 



212 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

loves; earth and heaven are unitary in compan- 
ionship and destiny. The golden ladder rests on 
the earth and reaches up into the heavens. 

About twice a week Ah Lee came to see us at 
North Beach. These visits subjected our courtesy 
and tact to a severe test. He loved little children, 
and at each visit he would bring with him a gayly 
painted box hlled with Chinese sweetmeats. Such 
sweetmeats ! They were too strong for the palates 
of even young Californians. What cannot be rel- 
ished and digested by a healthy California boy 
must be formidable indeed. Those sweetmeats 
were — but I give it up — they were indescribable ! 
The boxes were pretty, and, after being emptied 
of their contents, they were kept. 

Ah Lee's joy in his new experience did not 
abate. Under the touch of the Holy Spirit, his 
spiritual nature had suddenly blossomed into trop- 
ical luxuriance. To look at him made me think 
of the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. 
If I had had any lingering doubts of the trans- 
forming power of the gospel upon all human 
hearts, this conversion of Ah Lee would have set- 
tled the question forever. The bitter feeling 
against the Chinese that just then found expres- 
sion in California, through so many channels, did 
not seem to affect him in the least. He had his 
Christianit}^ warm from the heart of the Son of 
God, and no caricature of its features nor perver- 
sion of its spirit could bewilder him for a moment. 
He knew whom he had believed. None of these 
things moved him. O blessed mystery of God's 
mercy, that turns the night of heathen darkness 
into day, and makes the desert soul bloom with 
the flowers of paradise ! O cross of the Cruci- 
fied ! Lifted up, it shall draw all men to their 
Saviour! And O blind and slow of heart to be- 



AH LEE. 213 

lieve ! why could we not discern that this young 
Chinaman's conversion was our Lord's gracious 
challenge to our faith, and the pledge of success 
to the Church that will go into all the world with 
the news of salvation ? 

Ah Lee has vanished from my observation, but 
I have a persuasion that is like a burning proph- 
ecy, that he will be heard from again. To me he 
types the blessedness of old China newborn in 
the life of the Lord, and in his luminous face I 
read the prophecy of the redemption of the mil- 
lions who have so long bowed before the great 
red dragon, but who now w^ait for the coming of 
the Deliverer. 



COELA VISTA * 



CcELA Vista! Coela Vista! 
On Christmas morn, 
At early dawn, 
Listen! Leeward, 
To the seaward. 
Earth's great ocean, 
In rhythmic motion, 
Its song doth sing 
To Christ the King. 

Coela Vista! Cotla Vista! 
The valleys green, 
And groves between, 
With changing tints, 
And sunny glints, 
And clovids aglow, 
And earth below, 
Tell, glorv bright. 
Of Christ, the Light. 

Coela Vista! Coela Vista! 
Yon hills eternal, 
Of might supernal, 
With crests snow-crowned, 
Feet flower-bound — 
Their peaks prolong 
The Christmas song, 
And Jesus praise. 
Ancient of Days. 

Coela Vista! Coela Vista! 
Sky of sapphire, 
Bending nigher, 
Cocumungo,"!" 
Let thy song go 
Skyward soaring. 
Where, Him adoring, 
Souls, saved by grace, 
See face to face. 



* Coela Vista ("Sky View"), a spot of exquisite beauty on 
the southern slope of the Cahuenga Mountains, near Los An- 
geles, Cal., as seen by the writer on Christmas morning, De- 
cember 25, 1894. 

■j- Cocumungo, the highest peak of the range, snoAV-capped. 

(214) 



THE EMPEROR NORTON. 



THAT was his title. He wore it with an air 
that was a strange mixture of the mock- 
heroic and the pathetic. He was mad on 
this one point, and strangely shrewd and 
well informed on almost every other. Ar- 
rayed in a faded-blue uniform, with brass but- 
tons and epaulets, wearing a cocked hat wdth an 
eagle's feather, and at times with a rusty sword 
at\is side, he was a conspicuous figure in the 
streets of San Francisco, and a regular habitue of 
all its public places. In person he was stout, full- 
chested, though slightly stooped, with a large head 
heavily coated with bushy black hair, an aquiline 
nose, and dark gray eyes, whose mild expression 
added to the benignity of his face. On the end 
of his nose grew a tuft of long hairs, which he 
seemed to prize as a natural mark of royalty or 
chieftainship. Indeed, there was a popular legend 
afloat that he was of true royal blood — a stray 
Bourbon, or something of the sort. His speech 
was singularly fluent and elegant. The Emperor 
was one of the celebrities that no visitor failed to 
see. It is said that his mind was unhinged by a 
sudden loss of fortune in the early days, by the 
treachery of a partner in trade. The sudden 
blow was deadly, and the quiet, thrifty, affable 
man of business became a wreck. By nothing is 
the inmost quahty of a man made more manifest 
than by the manner in which he meets misfortune. 
One, when the sky darkens, having strong impulse 
and weak wifl, rushes into suicide; another, with 
a large vein of cowardice, seeks to drown the 

(215) 



2l6 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

sense of disaster in strong drink; yet another, 
tortured in every fiber of a sensitive organization, 
flees from the scene of his troubles and the faces 
of those that know him, preferring exile to shame. 
The truest man, when assailed by sudden calam- 
ity, rallies all the reserved forces of a splendid 
manhood to meet the shock, and, like a good ship, 
lifting itself from the trough of the swelling sea, 
mounts the wave and rides on. It was a curious 
idiosyncrasy that led this man, when fortune and 
reason were swept away at a stroke, to fall back 
upon this imaginary imperialism. The nature 
that could thus, when the real fabric of life was 
wrecked, construct such another by the exercise 
of a disordered imagination, must have been orig- 
inally of a gentle and magnanimous type. The 
broken fragments of mind, like those of a statue, 
reveal the quality of the original creation. It may 
be that he was happier than many who have w^orn 
real crowns. Napoleon at Chiselhurst, or his 
greater uncle at St. Helena, might have been 
gainer by exchanging lots with this man, who had 
the inward joy of conscious greatness without its 
burden and its perils. To all public places he had 
free access, and no pageant was complete without 
his presence. From time to time he issued procla- 
mations, signed " Norton I.," which the lively San 
Francisco dailies were always ready to print con- 
spicuously in their columns. The style of these 
proclamations was stately, the royal first person 
plural being used by him with all gravity and dig- 
nity. Ever and anon, as his uniform became 
dilapidated or ragged, a reminder of the condition 
of the imperial wardrobe would be given in one or 
more of the newspapers, and then in a few days 
he would appear in a new suit. He had the entree 
of all the restaurants, and he lodged — nobody 



THE EMPEROR NORTON. 21^ 

knew where. It was said that he was cared for 
by members of the Freemason society, to which 
he belonged at the time of his fall. I saw him 
often in my congregation in the Pine Street church, 
along in 1858, and into the sixties. He was a re- 
spectful and attentive listener to preaching. On 
the occasion of one of his first visits he spoke to 
me after the service, saying, in a kind and patron- 
izing tone: "I think it my duty to encourage 
religion and morality by showing myself at church, 
and to avoid jealousy I attend them all in turn." 

He loved children, and would come into the 
Sunday school, and sit delighted with their sing- 
ing. When, in distributing the presents on a 
Christmas tree, a necktie was handed him as the 
gift of the young ladies, he received it with much 
satisfaction, making a kingh' bow of gracious 
acknowledgment. Meeting him one day, in the 
springtime, holding my little girl by the hand, he 
paused, looked at the child's bright face, and, tak- 
ing a rosebud from his buttonhole, he presented 
it to her with a manner so graceful, and a smile 
so benignant, as to show that under the dingy blue 
uniform there beat the heart of a gentleman. He 
kept a keen eye on current events, and sometimes 
expressed his views with great sagacity. One day 
he stopped me on the street, saying: " I have 
just read the report of the political sermon of Dr. 

[gi^'iiig the name of a noted sensational 

preacher, who was in the habit, at times, of dis- 
cussing politics from his pulpit]. I disapprove 
political preaching. What do you think?" 

I expressed my cordial concurrence. 

*'I will put a stop to it. The preachers must 
stop preaching politics, or they must all come into 
one State Church. I will at once issue a decree 
to that effect." 



2r8 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

For some unknown reason, that decree never 
was promulgated. 

After the war, he took a deep interest in the 
reconstruction of the Southern States. I met him 
one day on Montgomery Street, when he asked me 
in a tone and with a look of earnest solicitude: 
"Do you hear any complaint or dissatisfaction 
concerninof me from the South? " 

I gravely answered in the negative. 

" I was for keeping the country undivided, but 
I have the kindest feeling for the Southern people, 
and will see that they are protected in all their 
rights. Perhaps if I were to go among them in 
person, it might have a good effect. What do you 
think?" 

I looked at him keenly as I made some suitable 
reply, but could see nothing in his expression but 
simple sincerity. He seemed to feel that he was 
indeed the father of his people. George Wash- 
ington himself could not have adopted a more 
paternal tone. 

Walking along the street behind the Emperor 
one day, my curiosity was a little excited by see- 
ing him thrust his hand with sudden energy into 
the hip pocket of his blue trousers. The hip 
pocket, by the way, is a modern American stu- 
pidity, associated in the popular mind with rowdy- 
ism, pistol shooting, and murder. Hip pockets 
should be abolished wherever there are courts of 
law and civilized men and women. But what was 
the Emperor after? Withdrawing his hand just 
as I overtook him, the mystery was revealed. It 
grasped a thick Bologna sausage, which he began 
to eat with unroyal relish. It gave me a shock, 
but he was not the first royal personage who has 
exhibited low tastes and carnal hankerings. 

He was seldom made sport of or treated rudely. 



THE EMPEROR NORTON. 2I9 

I saw him on one occasion when a couple of pass- 
ing- hoodlums jeered at him. He turned and gave 
them a look so full of mingled dignity, pain, and 
surprise that the low fellows were abashed, and 
uttering a forced laugh, with averted faces they 
hurried on. The presence that can bring shame 
to a San Francisco hoodlum must indeed be kingly, 
or in some way impressive. In that genus the 
beasthness and devihshness of American city life 
reach their lowest denomination. When the bru- 
taUty of the savage and the lowest forms of civil- 
ized vice are combined, human nature touches 
bottom. 

The Emperor never spoke of his early life. 
The veil of mystery on this point increased the 
popular curiosity concerning him, and invested 
him with something of a romantic interest. There 
was one thing that excited his disgust and indig- 
nation. The Bohemians of the San Francisco 
press got into the practice of attaching his name 
to their satires and hits at current folHes, knowing 
that the well-known '' Norton I." at the end would 
insure a reading. This abuse of the liberty of 
the press he denounced with dignified severity, 
threatening extreme measures unless it were 
stopped. But nowhere on earth did the press 
exhibit more audacity, or take a wider range, and 
it would have required a sterner heart and a 
stronger hand than that of Norton I. to put a hook 

into its jaws. 

The end of all human grandeur, real or imagi- 
nary, comes at last. The Emperor became thin- 
ner and more stooped as the years passed. The 
humor of his hallucination retired more and more 
into the background, and its pathetic side came 
out more strongly. His step was slow and feeble, 
and there was that look in his eyes so often seen 



220 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in the old and sometimes in the young, just before 
the great change comes — a rapt, far-away look, 
suggesting that the invisible is coming into view, 
the shadows vanishing and the realities appearing. 
The familiar face and form were missed on the 
streets, and it was known that he was dead. He 
had gone to his lonely lodging, and quietly laid 
down and died. The newspapers spoke of him 
with pity and respect, and all San Francisco took 
time, in the midst of its roar-and-rush fever of 
perpetual excitement, to give a kind thought to 
the dead man who had passed over to the life 
w^here all delusions are laid aside, where the mys- 
tery of life shall be revealed, and where we shall 
see that through all its tangled web ran the golden 
thread of mercy. His life was an illusion, and 
the thousands who sleep with him in Lone Moun- 
tain waiting the judgment day were his brothers. 



BUFFALO JONES. 



THAT is what the boys called him. His 
real Christian name was Zachariah. The 
way he got the name he went by was this: 
He was a Methodist, and prayed in pubhc. 
He was excitable, and his lungs were of 
extraordinary power. When fully aroused, his 
voice sounded, it was said, like the bellowing of a 
whole herd of buffaloes. It had peculiar rever- 
berations—rumbling, roaring, shaking the very 
roof of the sanctuary, or echoing among the hills 
when let out at its utmost strength at a camp meet- 
ing. This is why they called him Buffalo Jones. 
It was his voice. There never was such another. 
In Ohio he was a blacksmith and a fighting man. 
He had whipped every man who would fight him, 
in a whole tier of counties. He was converted 
after the old way — that is to say, he was *' power- 
fully " converted. A circuit rider preached the 
sermon that converted him. His anguish was aw- 
ful. The midnight hour found him in tears. The 
Ohio forest resounded with his cries for mercy. 
When he found peace, it swelled into rapture. ^ He 
joined the Church militant among the Methodists, 
and he stuck to them, quarreled with them, and 
loved them all his life. He had many troubles, 
and gave much trouble to many people. The old 
Adam died hard in the fighting blacksmith. His 
pastor, his family, his friends, his fellow-members 
in the Church, all got a portion of his wrath in due 
season, if they swerved a hairbreadth from the 
straight line of duty as he saw it. I was his pas- 
tor, and I never had a truer friend or a severer 

(221) 



222 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

censor. One Sunday morning he electrified my 
congregation, at the close of the sermon, by ris- 
ing in his place and making a personal application 
of a portion of it to individuals present, and in- 
sisting on their immediate expulsion from the 
Church. He had another side to his character, 
and at times was as tender as a woman. He acted 
as class leader. In his melting moods he moved 
every eye to tears, as he passed round among the 
brethren and sisters, weeping, exhorting, and re- 
joicing. At such times, his great voice softened 
into a pathos that none could resist, and swept the 
chords of sympathy with resistless power. But 
when his other mood was upon him, he was fear- 
ful. He scourged the unfaithful wath a whip of 
fire. He would quote with a singular fluency and 
aptness every passage of Scripture that blasted 
hypocrites, reproved the lukewarm, or threatened 
damnation to the sinner. At such times his voice 
sounded like the shout of a warrior in battle, and 
the timid and wondering hearers looked as if they 
were in the midst of the thunder and lightning of 
a tropical storm. I remember the shock he gave 
a quiet and timid lady whom I had persuaded to 
remain for the class meeting after service. Fixing 
his stern and fiery gaze upon her, and knitting his 
great bushy eyebrows, he thundered the question: 
''Sister, do you ever pray?" 

The startled woman nearly sprang from her seat 
in a panic as she stammered hurriedly: " Yes, sir; 
yes, sir." She did not attend his class meeting 
again. 

At a camp meeting he was present, and in one 
of his bitterest moods. The meeting was not 
conducted in a way to suit him. He was grim, 
critical, and contemptuous, making no conceal- 
ment of his dissatisfaction. The preaching dis- 



BUFFALO JONES. 223 

pleased him particularly. He groaned, frowned, 
and in other ways showed his feelings. At length 
he could stand it no longer. A young brother had 
just closed a sermon of a mild and persuasive kind, 
and no sooner had he taken his seat than the old 
man arose. Looking forth upon the vast audience, 
and then casting a sharp and scornful glance at 
the preachers in and around "the stand," he said: 
" You preachers of these days have no gospel in 
you. You remind me of a man going into his 
barn yard early in the morning to feed his stock. 
He has a basket on his arm, and here come the 
horses nickering, the cows lowing, the calves and 
sheep bleating, the hogs squealing, the turkeys 
gobbling, the hens clucking, and the roosters crow- 
ing. They all gather round him, expecting to be 
fed, and lo ! his basket is empty. You take texts, 
and you preach, but you have no gospel. Your 
baskets are empty." 

Here he darted a defiant glance at the astonished 
preachers, and then, turning to one, he added in 
a milder amd patronizing tone: "You, Brother 
Sim, do preach a little gospel — in your basket 
there is one little nubbin! " 

Down he sat, leaving the brethren to meditate 
on what he had said. The silence that followed 
was deep. 

At one time his conscience became troubled 
about the use of tobacco, and he determined to 
quit. This was the second great struggle of his 
life. He was running a sawmill in the foothills 
at the time, and lodged in a little cabin near by. 
Suddenly deprived of the stimulant to which it had 
so long been accustomed, his nervous system was 
wrought up to a pitch of frenzy. He would rush 
from the cabin, climb along the hillside, run leap- 
ing from rock to rock, now and then screaming 



224 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

like a maniac. Then he would rush back to the 
cabin, seize a plug of tobacco, smell it, rub it 
against his lips, and away he would go again » He 
smelled, but never tasted it again. 

"I was resolved to conquer, and by the grace 
of God I did," he said. 

That was a great victory for the fighting black- 
smith. 

When a melodeon was introduced into the 
church he was sorely grieved and furiously angry. 
He argued against it, he expostulated, he protested, 
he threatened, he stayed away from church. He 
wrote me a letter, in which he expressed his feel- 
ings thus: 

San Jose, i860. 

Dear Brother : They have got the devil into the church now! 
Put jour foot on its tail, and it squeals. Z. Jones. 

This was his figurative way of putting it. I was 
told that he had, on a former occasion, dealt with 
the question in a more summary way, by taking 
his ax and splitting a melodeon to pieces. 

Neutrality in politics was, of course, impossible 
to such a man. In the Civil War his heart was 
with the South. He gave up when Stonewall Jack- 
son was killed. 

*' It is all over — the praying man is gone," he 
said, and he sobbed like a child. From that day 
he had no hope for the Confederacy, though once 
or twice, when feeling ran high, he expressed a 
readiness to use carnal weapons in defense of his 
political principles. For all his opinions on the 
subject he found support from the Bible, which 
he read and studied with unwearying diligence. 
He took its words literally on all occasions, and 
the Old Testament history had a wonderful charm 
for him. He would have been ready to hew any 
modern Agag in pieces before the Lord. 



BUFFALO JONES. 225 

He finally found his way to the Insane Asylum. 
The reader has already seen how abnormal was 
his mind, and will not be surprised that his storm- 
tossed soul lost its rudder at last. But mid all its 
veerings he never lost sight of the Star that had 
shed its light upon his checkered path of life. He 
raved and prayed and wept, by turns. The hor- 
rors of mental despair would be followed by 
gleams of seraphic joy. When one of his stormy 
moods was upon him, his mighty voice could be 
heard above all the sounds of that sad and pitiful 
company of broken and wrecked souls. The old 
class meeting instinct and habit showed itself in 
his semilucid intervals. He would go round 
among the patients questioning them as to their re- 
ligious feeling and behavior in true class meeting 
style. Dr. Shurtleff one day overheard a colloquy 
between him and Dr. Rogers, a freethinker and 
reformer, whose vagaries had culminated in his 
shaving close one side of his immense whiskers, 
leaving the other side in all its flowing amplitude. 
Poor fellow! Pitiable as was his case, he made a 
ludicrous figure walking the streets of San Fran- 
cisco half shaved, and defiant of the w^onder and 
ridicule he excited. The old class leader's 
voice was earnest and loud, as he said: '* Now, 
Rogers, you must pray. If you will get down 
at the feet of Jesus, and confess your sins, and 
ask him to bless you, he will hear you, and give 
you peace. But if you won't do it," he contm- 
ued, with orrowin<j excitement and kindlin<x an<xer 
at the thought, *' you are the most infernal rascal 
that ever lived, and I'll beat you into a jelly! " 

The good Doctor had to interfere at this point, 

for the old man was in the verv act of carrvin<i: out 

his threat to punish Rogers bodily, on the bare 

possibility that he would not pray as he was told 

15 



226 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

to do. And so that extemporized class meeting 
came to an abrupt end. 

" Pray with me," he said to me the last time I 
saw him at the asylum. Closing the door of the 
little private office, we knelt side by side, and the 
poor old sufferer, bathed in tears, and docile as a 
little child, prayed to the once suffering, once 
crucified, but risen and interceding Jesus. When 
he arose from his knees his eyes w^ere wet, and his 
face showed that there was a great calm within. 
We never met again. He w^ent home to die. The 
storms that had swept his soul subsided, the light 
of reason was rekindled, and the light of faith 
burned brightly; and in a few weeks he died in 
great peace, and another glad voice joined in the 
anthems of the blood-washed millions in the city 
of God. 



SUICIDE IN CALIFORNIA. 




HALF protest rises within me as I begin 
this Sketch. The page almost turns crim- 
son under my gaze, and shadowy forms 
come forth out of the darkness into which 
they wildly plunged out of life's misery 
into death's mystery. Ghostly lips cry out : "Leave 
us alone ! Why call us back to a world where we 
lost all, and in quitting w^hich we risked all? Dis- 
turb us not to gratify the cold curiosity of unfeel- 
ing strangers. We have passed on beyond hu- 
man jurisdiction to the realities we dared to meet. 
Give us the pity and courtesy of 3^our silence, O 
Hving brother, who didst escape the wreck!" 
The appeal is not without effect, and if I lift the 
shroud that covers the faces of these dead, self- 
destroyed, it will be tenderly, pityingly. These 
simple Sketches of real California life would be 
imperfect if this characteristic feature were entire- 
ty omitted, for California was (and is yet) the 
land of suicides. In a single year there were one 
hundred and six in San Francisco alone. The 
whole number of suicides in the State would, if the 
horror of each case could be even imperfectly im- 
agined, appall even the dryest statistician of crime. 
The causes for this prevalence of self-destruction 
are to be sought in the peculiar conditions of the 
country and the habits of the people. California, 
with all its beauty, grandeur, and riches, has been 
to the man}^ who have gone thither a land of great 
expectations, but small results. This was specially 
the case in the earlier period of its history, after 

(227) 



228 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the discovery of gold and its settlement by '* Amer- 
icans," as we call as ourselves, ^ar excellence. 
Hurled from the topmost height of extravagant hope 
to the lowest deep of disappointment, the shock 
is too great for reaction; the rope, razor, bullet, 
or deadl}' drug, finishes the tragedy. Material- 
istic infidelity in California is the avowed belief of 
multitudes, and its subtle poison infects the minds 
and unconsciously the actions of thousands who 
recoil from the dark abyss that yawns at the feet 
of its adherents with its fascination of horror. Un- 
der some circumstances, suicide becomes logical 
to a man who has neither hope nor dread of a 
hereafter. Sins against the body, and especially 
the nervous system, were prevalent; and days of 
pain, sleepless nights, and weakened wills were 
the precursors of the tragedy that promised change, 
if not rest. The devil gets men inside a fiery cir- 
cle, made by their own sin and folly, from which 
there seems to be no escape but b}' death, and they 
will unbar its awful door with their own trembling 
hands. There is another door of escape for the 
worst and most wretched, and it is opened to the 
penitent by the hand that was nailed to the rugged 
cross. These crises do come, when the next step 
must be death or life, penitence or perdition. 
Do sane men and women ever commit suicide? 
Yes and No. Yes, in the sense that they some- 
times do it with even pulse and steady nerves. 
No, in the sense that there cannot be perfect 
soundness in the brain and heart of one who vio- 
lates a primal instinct of human nature. Each 
case has its own peculiar features, and must be 
left to the all-seeing and all-pitying Father. Sui- 
cide, where it is not the greatest of crimes, is 
the greatest of misfortunes. The righteous Judge 
will classify its victims. 



SUICIDE IN CALIFORNIA. 229 

A noted case in San Francisco was that of a 
French CathoHc priest. He was 3'oung, briUiant, 
and popular — beloved by his flock, and admired 
by a large circle outside. He had taken the sol- 
emn vows of his Order in all sincerity of purpose, 
and was distinguished as well for his zeal in his 
pastoral w^ork as for his genius. But temptation 
met him, and he fell. It came in the shape in 
which it assailed the young Hebrew in Potiphar's 
house, and in which it overcame the poet-king of 
Israel. He was seized with horror and remorse, 
though he had no accuser save that voice within, 
which cannot be hushed while the soul lives. He 
ceased to perform the sacred functions of his office, 
making some plausible pretext to his superiors, 
not daring to add sacrilege to mortal sin. Shut- 
ting himself in his chamber, he brooded over his 
crime; or, no longer able to endure the agony he 
felt, he would rush forth, and walk for hours over 
the sand dunes or along the seabeach. But no 
answer of peace followed his prayers, and the 
voices of nature soothed him not. He thou<xht his 
sm unpardonable — at least, he would not pardon 
himself. He was found one morning lying dead 
in his bed in a pool of blood. He had severed the 
jugular vein with a razor, which was still clutched 
in his stiffened fingers. His handsome and classic 
face bore no trace of pain. A sealed letter, lying 
on the table, contained his confession and his fare- 
well. 

Among the lawyers in one of the largest mining 
towns of California was H. B . He was a na- 
tive of Virginia, and an alumnus of its noble uni- 
versity. He was a scholar, a fine lawyer, hand- 
some and manl}^ in person and bearing, and had the 
gift of popularit}'. Though the 3'oungest lawyer 
in the town, he took a front place at the bar at 



230 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

once. Over the heads of several older aspirants, 
he was elected county judge. There was no ebb 
in the tide of his general popularity, and he had 
qualities that won the warmest regard of his inner 
circle of special friends. But in this case, as in 
many others, success had its danger. Hard 
drinking was the rule in those days. Horace 

B had been one of the rare exceptions. 

There was a reason for this extra prudence. He 
had that peculiar susceptibility to alcoholic excite- 
ment which has been the ruin of so many gifted 
and noble men. He knew his weakness, and it 
is strange that he did not continue to guard against 
the danger that he so well understood. Strange? 
No. This infatuation is so common in everyday 
life that we cannot call it strange. There is some 
sort of fatal fascination that draws men with their 
eyes wide open into the very jaws of this hell of 
strong drink. The most brilliant physician in San 
Francisco, in the prime of his magnificent young 
manhood, died of delirium tremens, the victim of 
a self-inflicted disease, whose horrors no one knew 
or could picture so well as himself. Who says 
man is not a fallen, broken creature, and that there 
is not a devil at hand to tempt him? This devil, 
under the guise of sociability, false pride, or moral 

cowardice, tempted Horace B , and he yielded. 

Like tinder touched by flame, he blazed into drunk- 
enness, and again and again the proud-spirited, 
manly, and cultured young lawyer and jurist was 
seen staggering along the streets, maudlin or mad 
with alcohol. When he had slept off his madness, 
his humiliation was intense, and he walked the 
streets with pallid face and downcast eyes. The 
coarser-crrained men with whom he was thrown in 
contact had no conception of the mental tortures 
he suffered, and their rude jests stung him to the 



SUICIDE IN CALIFORNIA. 233 

quick. He despised himself as a weakling and 
a coward, but he did not get more than a transient 
victory over his enemy. The spark had struck a 
sensitive organization, and the fire of hell, smoth- 
ered for the time, would blaze out again. He 
was fast becoming a common drunkard, the ac- 
cursed appetite growing stronger, and his will 
weakening in accordance with that terrible law by 
which man's physical and moral nature visits ret- 
ribution on all who cross its path. During a term 
of the court over which he presided, he was taken 
home one night drunk. A pistol shot was heard 
by persons in the vicinity sometime before day- 
break; but pistol shots, at all hours of the night, 
were then too common to excite special attention. 

Horace B was found next morning lying on 

the floor with a bullet through his head. Many a 
stout, heavy-bearded man had wet eyes when the 
body of the ill-fated and brilliant young Virginian 
was let down into the grave, which had been dug 
for him on the hill overlooking^ the town from the 
southeast. 

In the same town there was a portrait painter, a 
quiet, pleasant fellow, with a good face and easy, 
gentlemanly ways. As an artist he was not with- 
out merit, but his gift fell short of genius. He fell 
in love with a charming girl, the eldest daughter 
of a leading citizen. She could not return his 
passion. The enamored artist still loved, and 
hoped against hope, lingering near her like a moth 
around a candle. There was another and more 
favored suitor in the case, and the rejected lover 
had all his hopes killed at one blow by her mar- 
riage to his rival. He felt that without her life 
was not worth living. He resolved to kill himself, 
and swallowed the contents of a two-ounce bottle 
of laudanum. After he had done the rash deed 



234 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

a reaction took place. He told what he had done, 
and a physician was sent for. Before the doctor's 
arrival the deadly drug asserted its power, -and 
this repentant suicide began to show signs of go- 
ing into a sleep from which it was certain he would 
never awake. 

" My God ! What have I done? '' he exclaimed 
in horror. " Do your best, boys, to keep me from 
going to sleep before the doctor gets here." 

The doctor came quickly, and by the prompt 
and very vigorous use of the stomach pump he was 
saved. I was sent for, and found the would-be 
suicide looking very weak, sick, silly, and sheep- 
ish. He got well, and went on making pictures; 
but the picture of the fair, sweet girl, for love of 
whom he came so near dying, never faded from 
his mind. His face always wore a sad look, and 
he lived the life of a recluse, but he never at- 
tempted suicide again — he had had enough of that. 

"It always makes me shudder to look at that 
place," said a lady, as we passed an elegant cot- 
tage on the western side of Russian Hill, San 
Francisco. 

"Why so? To me the place looks specially 
cheerful and attractive, with its graceful slope, its 
shrubbery, flowers, and thick greensward." 

"Yes, it is a lovely place, but it has a history 
that it shocks me to think of. Do you see that 
tall pumping apparatus, with water tank on top, 
in the rear of the house? " 

"Yes; what of it?" 

"A woman hanged herself there a year ago. 
The family consisted of the husband and wife and 
two bright, beautiful children. He was thrifty and 
prosperous, she was an excellent housekeeper, 
and the children were healthy and well-behaved. 
In appearance a happier family could not be found 



SUICIDE IN CALIFORNIA. 235 

on the hill. One day Mr. P came home at 

the usual hour, and, missing the wife's customary 
greeting, he asked ;the children where she was. 
The children had not seen their mother for two or 
three hours, and looked startled when they found 
she was missing. Messengers were sent to the 
nearest neighbors to make inquiries, but no one 

had seen her. Mr. P 's face began to wear a 

troubled look as he walked the floor, from time to 
time going to the door and casting anxious glances 
about the premises. 

About dusk a sudden shriek was heard issuing 
from the water tank in the yard, and the Irish 
servant girl came rushing from it, with eyes dis- 
tended and face pale with terror. •' Holy Mother 
of God! It's the Missus that's hanged herself I " 

The alarm spread, and soon a crowd, curious 
and sympathetic, had collected. They found the 
poor lady suspended by the neck from a beam at 
the head of the staircase leading to the top of the 
inclosure. She was quite dead, and a horrible 
sight to see. At the inquest no facts were devel- 
oped throwing any light on the tragedy. There 
had been no cloud in the sky portending the light- 
ning stroke that laid the happy little home in ruins. 
The husband testified that she was as bright and 
happy the morning of the suicide as he had ever 
seen her, and had parted with him at the door with 
the usual kiss. Everything about the house that 
day bore the marks of her deft and skillful touch. 
The two children were dressed with accustomed 
neatness and good taste. And yet the bolt was in the 
cloud, and it fell before the sun had set! What 
was the mystery? Ever afterwards I felt something 
of the feeling expressed by my lady friend when, 
in passing, I looked upon the structure which had 
been the scene of this singular tragedy. 



236 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

One of the most energetic business men living 
in one of the foothill towns, on the northern edge 
of the Sacramento Valley, had a charming wife, 
whom he loved with deep and tender devotion. 
As in all true love matches, the passion of youth 
had ripened into a yet stronger and purer love 
with the lapse of years and participation in the 
joys and sorrows of wedded life. Their union 
had been blessed with five children, all intelligent, 
sweet, and full of promise. It was a very affec- 
tionate and happy household. Both parents pos- 
sessed considerable literary taste and culture, and 
the best books and current magazine literature 
were read, discussed, and enjoyed in that quiet 
and elegant home amid the roses and evergreens. 
It was a little paradise in the hills, where Love, 
the home angel, brightened every room and blessed 
every heart. But trouble came in the shape of 
business reverses, and the worried look and wake- 
ful nights of the husband told how^ heavy were the 
blows that had fallen upon this hard and willing 
worker. The course of ruin in California was 
fearfully rapid in those days. When a man's 
financial supports began to give way, they went 
with a crash. So it was in this case. Every- 
thing was swept away, a mountain of unpaid debts 
was piled up, credit was gene, clamor of creditors 
deafened him, and the gaunt wolf of actual want 
looked in through the door of the cottage upon 
the dear wife and little ones. Another shadow, 
and a yet darker one settled upon them. The un- 
happy man had been tampering with the delusion 
of spiritualism, and his wife had been drawn with 
him into a partial belief in its vagaries. In their 
troubles they sought the aid of the " familiar 
spirits" that peeped and muttered through speak- 
ing, writing, and rapping mediums. This kept 



SUICIDE IN CALIFORNIA. 237 

them in a state of morbid excitement that increased 
from day to day until they were wrought up to a 
tension that verged on insanity. The lying spirits, 
or the frenzy of his own heated brain, turned his 
thought to death as the only escape from want. 

*' I see our way out of these troubles, wife," he 
said one night, as they sat hand in hand in the 
bedchamber, where the children were lying asleep. 
" We will all die together ! This has been revealed 
to me as the solution of all our difficulties. Yes, 
we will enter the beautiful spirit world together ! 
This is freedom! It is only getting out of prison. 
Bright spirits beckon and call us. I am ready." 
There was a gleam of madness in his eyes, and, 
as he took a pistol from the bureau drawer, an 
answering gleam flashed forth from the eyes of the 
wife, as she said: '* Yes, love; we will all go to- 
gether. I too am ready." 

The children were sleeping sweetly, unmindful 
of the horror that the devil was hatching. ** The 
children first, then you, and then me," he said, his 
eye kindHng with increasing excitement. 

He penciled a short note addressed to one of his 
old friends, asking him to attend to the burial of 
the bodies, then they kissed each of the sleeping 
children, and then — but let the curtain fall on the 
scene that followed. The seven were found next 
day tying dead, a bullet through the brain of each, 
the murderer, by the side of the wife, still holding 
the weapon of death in his hand, its muzzle against 
his right temple. 

Other pictures of real life and death crowd upon 
my mind, among them noble forms and faces that 
were near and dear to me ; but again I hear the 
appealing voices. The page before me is wet 
with tears — I cannot see to write. 



MIKE REESE. 



1HAD business with him, and went at a busi- 
ness hour. No introduction was needed, for 
he had been my landlord, and no tenant of his 
ever had reason to complain that he did not get 
a visit from him, in person or by proxy, at least 
once a month. He was a punctual man — as a 
collector of what was due him. Seeing that he 
was intently engaged, I paused and looked at him. 
A man of huge frame, with enormous hands and 
feet, massive head, receding forehead, and heavy 
cerebral development, full sensual lips, large nose, 
and peculiar eyes that seemed at the same time to 
look through you and to shrink from your gaze — 
he was a man at whom a stranger would stop in 
the street to get a second look. There he sat at 
his desk, too much absorbed to notice m}^ entrance. 
Before him lay a large pile of one-thousand-dollar 
United States Government bonds, and he was 
clipping off the coupons. That face ! it was a 
study as he sat using the big pair of scissors. A 
hungry boy in the act of taking into his mouth a 
ripe cherry, a mother gazing down into the face 
of her pretty sleeping child, a lover looking into 
the eyes of his charmer, are but faint figures by 
which to express the intense pleasure he felt in his 
work. But there was also a feline element in his 
joy — his handling of those bonds was somewhat 
like a cat toying with its prey. When at last 
he raised his head, there was a fierce gleam in his 
eye and a flush in his face. I had come upon a 
'devotee engaged in worship. This was Mike 
(238) 



MIKE REESE. 



239 



Reese, the miser and millionaire. Placing his 
huge left hand on the pile of bonds, he gruffly re- 
turned my salutation: "Good morning." 

He turned as he spoke, and cast into my face 
a look of scrutiny which said plain enough that he 
wanted me to make known my business with him 
at once. 

I told him what was wanted. At the request of 
the official board of the Minna Street Church I 
had come to ask him to make a contribution toward 
the pa3'ment of its debt. 

"O yes; I was expecting you. They all come 
to me. Father Gallagher, of the CathoHc Church, 
Dr. Wyatt, of the Episcopal Church, and all the 
others, have been here. I feel friendly to the 
Churches, and I treat all alike — it won't do for 
me to be partial — I don' t give to any! " 

That last clause was an anticlimax, dashing my 
hopes rudely; but I saw he meant it, and left. I 
never heard of his departing from the rule of strict 
impartiality he had laid down for himself. 

We met at times at a restaurant on Clay Street. 
He was a heart}- feeder, and it was amusing to see 
how skillfully in the choice of dishes and the thor- 
oughness with which he emptied them he could 
combine economy with plenty. On several of 
these occasions, when we chanced to sit at the 
same table, I proposed to pay for both of us, and 
he quickly assented, his hard, heavy features 
lighting up with undisguised pleasure at the sug- 
gestion, as he shambled out of the room amid the 
smiles of the company present, most of whom 
knew him as a millionaire, and me as a Methodist 
preacher. 

He had one affair of the heart. Cupid plaved a 
prank on him that was the occasion of much^ner- 
rim^nt in the San Francisco newspapers, and of 



240 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

much grief to him. A widow was his enslaver 
and tormentor — the old story. She sued him for 
breach of promise of marriage. The trial made 
great fun for the lawyers, reporters, and the amused 
public generally; but it was no fun for him. He 
was mulcted for six thousand dollars and costs of 
the suit. It was during the time I was renting 
one of his offices on Washington Street. I called 
to see him, wishing to have some repairs made. 
His clerk met me in the narrow hall, and there 
was a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he said: 
'*You had better come another day. The old 
man has just paid that judgment in the breach of 
promise case, and he is in a bad way." 

Hearing our voices, he said: *'Who is there? 
Come in." 

I went in, and found him sitting leaning on his 
desk, the picture of intense wretchedness. He 
was all unstrung, his jaw fallen, and a most pitiful 
face met mine as he looked up and said, in a bro- 
ken voice: "Come some other day — I can do no 
business to-day; I am very unwell." 

He was indeed sick — sick at heart. I felt sorry 
for him. Pain alwa3'S excites my pity, no matter 
what ma}^ be its cause. He was a miser, and the 
pa3^ment of those thousands of dollars was like 
tearing him asunder. He did not mind the gibes 
of the newspapers, but the loss of the money was 
almost killing. He had not set his heart on popu- 
larity, but cash. 

He had another special trouble, but with a dif- 
ferent sort of ending. It was discovered by a 
neighbor of his that, by some mismeasurement of 
the surveyors, he (Reese) had built the wall of 
one of his immense business houses on Front Street 
six inches beyond his own proper line, taking in 
just so much of that neighbor's lot. Not being on 



MIKE REESE. 24T 

friendly terms with Reese, his neighbor made a 
peremptory demand for the removal of the wall, or 
the payment of a heavy price for the ground. 
Here was misery for the miser. He writhed in 
mental agony, and begged for easier terms, but in 
vain. His neighbor would not relent. The busi- 
ness men of the vicinity rather enjoyed the situa- 
tion, humorously watching the progress of the 
affair. It was a case of diamond cut diamond, 
both parties bearing the reputation of being hard 
men to deal with. A day was fixed for Reese to 
give a definite answer to his neighbor's demand, 
with notice that, in case of noncompliance, suit 
against him would be begun at once. The day 
came, and with it a remarkable change in Reese's 
tone. He sent a short note to his enemy, breath- 
ing profanity and defiance. 

''What is the matter?" mused the puzzled citi- 
zen. " Reese has made some discovery that makes 
him think he has the upper hand, else he would 
not talk this way." 

And he sat and thought. The instinct of this 
class of men where money is involved is like a 
miracle. 

"1 have it! " he suddenly exclaimed; " Reese 
has the same hold on me that I have on him." 

Reese happened to be the owner of another lot 
adjoining that of his enemy, on the other side. It 
occurred to him that, as all these lots were sur- 
veyed at the same time by the same party, it was 
most likely that as his line had gone six inches 
too far on the one side, his enemy's had gone as 
much too far on the other. And so it was. He 
had quietly a survey made of the premises, and 
he chuckled with inward joy to find that he held 
this winning card in the unfriendly game. With 
grim politeness the neighbors exchanged deeds for 
16 



242 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the two half feet of ground, and their war ended. 
The moral of this incident is for him who hath wit 
enough to see it. 

For several seasons he came every morning to 
North Beach to take sea baths. Sometimes he 
rode his well-known white horse, but oftener he 
walked. He bathed in the open sea, making, as 
one expressed it, twenty-five cents out of the Pa- 
cific Ocean by avoiding the bath house. Was 
this the charm that drew him forth so early? It 
not seldom chanced that we walked down town 
together. At times he was quite communicative, 
speaking of himself in a way that was peculiar. 
It seems he had thoughts of marr3dng before his 
episode with the widow. 

'* Do you think a young girl of twenty could 
love an old man like me?" he asked me one day, 
as we were walking along the street. 

I looked at his huge and ungainly bulk, and 
into his animal face, and made no direct answer. 
Love! Six millions of dollars is a great sum. 
Money may buy youth and beauty, but love does 
not come at its call. God's highest gifts are free; 
only the second-rate things can be bought with 
money. Did this sordid old man yearn for pure 
human love amid his millions? Did such a dream 
cast a momentary glamour over a life spent in rak- 
ing among the muck heaps? If so, it passed 
away, for he never married. 

He understood his own case. He knew in what 
estimation he was held by the public, and did not 
conceal his scorn for its opinion. 

'*My love of money is a disease. My saving 
and hoarding as I do is irrational, and I know it. 
It pains me to pay iwG cents for a street car ride, 
or a quarter of a dollar for a dinner. My pleasure 
in accumulating property is morbid, but I have 



MIKK REESE. 



243 



felt it from the time I was a foot peddler in Char- 
lotte, Campbell, and Pittsylvania Counties, in Vir- 
ginia, until now. It is a sort of insanity, and it is 
incurable ; but it is about as good a form of mad- 
ness as any, and all the world is mad in some 
fashion.*' 

This was the substance of what he said of him- 
self when in one of his moods of free speech, and it 
gave me a new idea of human nature — a man 
whose keen and penetrating brain could subject 
his own consciousness to a cool and correct analy- 
sis, seeing clearly the folly which he could not re- 
sist. The autobiography of such a man might 
furnish a curious psychological study, and explain 
the formation and development in society of those 
moral monsters called misers. Nowhere in litera- 
ture has such a character been fully portrayed, 
though Shakespeare and George Eliot have given 
vivid touches of some of its features. 

He always retained a kind feeling for the South, 
over whose hills he had borne his peddler's pack 
when a youth. After the war, two young ex-Con- 
federate soldiers came to San Francisco to seek 
their fortunes. A small room adjoining my office 
was vacant, and the brothers requested me to se- 
cure it for them as cheap as possible. 1 applied 
to Reese, telling him who the young men were, 
and describing their broken and impecunious con- 
dition. 

**Tell them to take the room free of rent, but 
it ought to bring five dollars a month." 

It took a mighty effort, and he sighed as he 
spoke the words. I never heard of his acting sim- 
ilarly in any other case, and I put this down to his 
credit, glad to know that there was a warm spot 
in that mountain of mud and ice. A report of 
this generous act got afloat in the city, and many 



244 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

were the inquiries I received as to its truth. There 
was general increduUty. 

His health failed, and he crossed the seas. Per- 
haps he wished to visit his native hills in Germany, 
which he had last seen when a child. There he 
died, leaving all his millions to his kindred, save a 
bequest of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
to the University of California. What were his 
last thoughts, what was his final verdict concern- 
ing human life, I know not. Empty-handed he 
entered the world of spirits, where, the film fallen 
from his vision, he saw the eternal realities. 
What amazement must have followed his awaken- 
ing ! 



UNCLE NOLAN. 

HE was black and ugly, but it was ugliness 
that did not disgust nor repel you. His 
face had a touch both of the comic and 
the pathetic. His mouth was wide, his 
lips very thick and the color of a ripe 
damson, blue-black; his nose made up in width 
what it lacked in elevation; his ears were bier, and 
bent forward ; his eyes were a dull white, on a very 
dark ground; his wool was white and thick. His 
age might be anywhere along from seventy onward. 
A black man's age, like that of a horse, becomes 
dubious after reaching a certain stage. 

He came to the class meeting in the Pine Street 
Church, in San Francisco, one Sabbath morning. 
He ask leave to speak, which was granted. 

"Bruthren, I come here sometime ago, from 
Vicksburg, Miss., where I has lived for forty 
year, or more. I heered dar was a culud church 
op on de hill, an' I thought I'd go an' washup wid 
'em. I went dar three or fo' Sundays, but I foun' 
deir ways didn't suit me, an' my ways didn't suit 
dem. Dey was Yankees' niggers, an' [proudly] 
I's a Southern man m3^self . Sumbody tole me dar 
was a Southern Church down here on Pine Street, 
an' I thought Pd cum an' look in. Soon's I got 
inside de church, an' look roun' a minit, I feels at 
home. Dey look like home folks, de preacher 
preach Hke home folks, de people sing like 
home folks. Yer see, chillun, Ps a Soutliern 
man myself [emphatically], and Ps a South- 
ern Methodis'. Dis is de Church I was borned 

(245) 



246 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

in, an' dis is de Church I was rarred in, an' 
[with great energy] dis is de Church which 
de Scripter says de gates uv hell shall not 
prevail agin it! ["Amen! " from Father Newman 
and others.] When dey heerd I was comin' to 
dis Church, some uv 'em got arter me 'bout it. 
Dey say dis Church was a enemy to de black peo- 
ple, and dat dey was in favor uv slavery. I tole 
'em de Scripter said, 'Love your enemies,' an' 
den I took de Bible an' read what it says about 
slavery — I can read some, chillun — ' Servants, 
obey yer masters in all things, not wid eye-service, 
as men pleasers, but as unto de Lord; ' and soon. 
But, bless 3'er souls, chillun, dey wouldn't lis'en 
to dat — so I fozui' out dey was ahherlisheii niggers^ 
an' I lef 'em!'' 

Yes, he left them, and came to us. I received 
him into the Church in due form, and with no lit- 
tle eclat, he being the only son of Ham on our 
roll of members in San Francisco. He stood firm 
to his Southern Methodist colors under a great 
pressure. 

" Yer ought ter be killed for goin* ter dat South- 
ern Church," said one of his colored acquaint- 
ances one day, as they met in the street. 

"Kill me, den," said Uncle Nolan, with proud 
humility; "kill me, den; 3^er can't cheat me out 
uv many days, nohow." 

He made a living, and something over, by rag- 
picking at North Beach and elsewhere, until the 
Chinese entered into competition with him, and 
then it was hard times for Uncle Nolan. His eye- 
sight partially failed him, and it was pitiful to see 
him on the beach, his threadbare garments flutter- 
ing in the wind, groping amid the rubbish for rags, 
or shufHing along the streets with a huge sack on 
his back, and his old felt hat tied under his nose 



UNCLE NOLAN. 247 

with a string, picking his way carefully to spare 
his swollen feet, which were tied up with bagging 
and woolens. His religious fervor never cooled ; 
I never heard him complain. lie never ceased to 
be joyously thankful for two things: his freedom 
and his religion. But, strange as it may seem, he 
was a pro-slavery man to the last. Even after the 
war, he stood to his opinion. 

" Dem niggers in de South thinks dey is free, 
but dev ain't. 'Fore it's all ober, all dat ain't 
dead will be glad to git back to deir masters," he 
would say. 

Yet he was very proud of his own freedom, and 
took the utmost care of his free papers. He had 
no desire to resume his former relation to the pe- 
culiar and patriarchal institution. He was not 
the first philosopher who had one theory for his 
fellows, and another for himself. 

Uncle Nolan would talk of religion by the hour. 
He never tired of that theme. His faith was sim- 
ple and strong, but, like most of his race, he had 
a tinge of superstition. He was a dreamer of 
dreams, and he believed in them. Here is one 
which he recited to me. His weird manner, and 
low, chanting tone, I must leave to the imagina- 
tion af the reader. 

Uncle Nolan's Dream. 

A tall black man come along, an' took me by de 
arm, an' tole me he had come for me. I said: 
" Wha' yer want wid me? " 

" I come to carry yer down into de darkness." 

** What for?" 

" 'Cause you didn't follow de Lord." 

Wid dat, he pulled me 'long de street till he 
come to a big black house, de biggest house an' de 
thickest walls I ever seed. We went in a little 



248 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

do', an' den he took me down a long sta'rs in de 
dark, till we come to a big do' ; we went inside, 
an' den de big black man locked de do' behin" us. 
An' so we kep' on, goin' down, an' goin' down, 
an' goin' down, an' he kep' lockin' dem big iron 
do's behin' us, an' all de time it was pitch dark, 
so I couldn't see him, but he still hel' on ter me. 
At las' we stopped, an' den he started to go 'way. 
He locked de do' behin' him, an' I heered him 
goin' up de steps de way we come, lockin' all de 
do's behin' him as he went. I tell you, dat was 
dreadful when I heerd dat big key turn on de out- 
side, an' me 'way down, down dar in de dark all 
alone, an' no chance ever to git out! An' I 
knowed it was 'cause I didn't f oiler de Lord. I 
felt roun' de place, an' dar was nothin' but de 
thick walls an' de great iron do'. Den I sot down 
an' cried, 'cause I knowed I was a los' man. Dat 
was de same as hell [his voice sinking into a whis- 
per], an' all de time I knowed I was dar 'cause 
I hadn't follered de Lord. Bymeby somethin' 
say: "Pray." Somethin' keep sayin' : "Pray." 
Den I drap on my knees an' prayed. I tell -you, 
no man ever prayed harder' n I did ! I prayed, an' 
prayed, an' prayed! What's dat? Dar's some- 
body a comin' down dem steps; dey's unlockin' 
de do'; an' de fus' thing I knowed, de place was 
all lighted up bright as day, an' a white-faced man 
stood by me, wid a crown on his head, an' a gold- 
en key in his han'. Somehow I knowed it was 
Jesus, an' right den I waked up all of a tremble, 
an' knowed it was a warnin' dat I mus' foller de 
Lord. An', bless Jesus, I has been foUerin' him 
fifty year since I had dat dream." 

In his prayers, and class meeting and love feast 
talks. Uncle Nolan showed a depth of spiritual in- 
sight truly wonderful, and the effects of these talks 



UNCLE NOLAN. 249 

were frequentl}^ electrical. Many a time have I 
seen the Pine Street brethren and sisters rise from 
their knees, at the close of one of his prayers, 
melted into tears, or thrilled to religious rapture, 
by the power of his simple faith and the vividness 
of his sanctified imagination. 

He held to his proslavery views and guarded 
his own freedom papers to the last; and when he 
died, in 1875, the last colored Southern Methodist 
in California was transferred from the Church 
militant to the great company that no man can 
number, gathered out of every nation and tribe 
and kindred on earth. 



OLD MAN LOWRY. 



I HAD marked his expressive physiognomy 
among my hearers in the little church in So- 
nora tor some weeks before he made himself 
known to me. As I learned afterwards, he 
was weighing the young preacher in his crit- 
ical balances. He had a shrewd Scotch face, in 
which there was a mingling of keenness, benignity, 
and humor. His age might be sixty, or it might 
be more. He was an old bachelor, and wide 
guesses are sometimes made as to the ages of that 
class of men. They may not live longer than mar- 
ried men, but they do not show the effects of life's 
wear and tear so early. He came to see us one 
evening. He fell in love with the mistress of the 
parsonage, just as he ought to have done, and we 
were charmed with the quaint old bachelor. There 
was a piquancy, a sharp flavor, in his talk that was 
delightful. His aphorisms often crystallized a neg- 
lected truth in a form all his own. He was an 
original character. There was nothinor common- 
place about him. He had his own way of sa3^ing 
and doing everything. 

Society in the mines was limited in that da}^ 
and we felt that we had found a real treasure in 
this old man of unique mold. His visits were re- 
freshing to us, and his plain-spoken criticisms were 
helpful to me. 

He had left the Church because he did not 

agree with the preachers on some points of 

Christian ethics, and because they used tobacco. 

But he was unhappy on the outside; and, tinding 

(250) 



OLD MAN I.OWRY. 25 1 

that my views and liabits did not happen to cross 
his pecuhar notions, he came back. His rehgious 
experience was out of the common order. Bred 
a Cahdnist, of the good old Scotch-Presbyterian 
type, he had swung away from that faith, and was 
in danger of rushing into UniversaHsm or inli- 
dehty. That once famous and much-read Httle 
book, "John Nelson's Journal," fell into his 
hands, and changed his whole life. It led him to 
Christ and to the Methodists. He was a true 
spiritual child of the unflinching Yorkshire stone- 
cutter. Like him, he despised halfway measures; 
and like him, he was aggressive in thought and 
action. What he Hked he loved; what he disliked 
he hated. Calvinism he abhorred, and he let no 
occasion pass for pouring into it hot shot of his 
scorn and wrath. One night I preached from the 
text: '' Should it be according to thy mind? " 

'' The first part of your sermon," he said to me 
as we passed out of the church, *' distressed me 
greatly. For a full half hour you preached 
straight-out Calvinism, and I thought you had 
ruined everything; but you had left a little slip- 
gap, and crawled out at the last." 

His ideal of a minister of the gospel was Dr. 
Keener, whom he knew at New Orleans before 
coming to California. He was the first man I 
ever heard mention Dr. Keener's name for the 
episcopacy. There was much in common be- 
tween them. If my eccentric California bachelor 
friend did not have as strong and cool a head, he 
had as brave and true a heart as the incisive and 
chivalrous Louisiana preacher, upon whose head 
the miter was placed by the suffrage of his breth- 
ren at Memphis in 1870. He became very active 
as a worker in the Church. I made him class 
leader, and there have been few in that oflice who 



252 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

brought to its sacred duties as much spiritual in- 
sight, candor, and tenderness. At times his words 
flashed hke diamonds, showing what the Bible can 
reveal to a solitary thinker who makes it his chief 
study day and night. When needful, he could 
apply caustic that burned to the very core of an 
error of opinion or of practice. He took a class 
in the Sunday school; and his freshness, acute- 
ness, humor, and deep knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures made him far more than an ordinary teacher. 
A fine pocket Bible was offered as a prize to the 
scholar who should, in three months, memorize 
the greatest number of Scripture verses. The 
wisdom of such a contest is questionable to me 
now, but it was the fashion then, and I was too 
young and self-distrustful to set myself against the 
current in such matters. The contest was an ex- 
citing one — two boys, Robert A and Jonathan 

R , and one girl, Annie P , leading all the 

school. Jonathan suddenly fell behind, and was 
soon distanced by his two competitors. Lowry, 
who was his teacher, asked him what was the rea- 
son of his sudden breakdown. The boy blushed, 
and stammered out: " I didn't want to beat An- 
nie." 

Robert won the prize, and the day came for its 
presentation. The house was full, and everybody 
was in a pleasant mood. After the prize had been 
presented in due form and with a little flourish, 
Lowry arose, and, producing a costly Bible, in a 
few words telling how magnanimously and gal- 
lantly Jonathan had retired from the contest, pre- 
sented it to the pleased and blushing boy. The 
boys and girls applauded California fashion, and 
the old man's face o:lowed with satisfaction. He 
had in him curiously mingled the elements of the 
Puritan and the Cavalier — the uncompromising 



OLD MAN LOWRY. 253 

persistency of the one, and the chivah-ous impulse 
and open-handedness of the other. 

The old man had too many crotchets and too 
much combativeness to be popular. He spared 
no opinion or habit he did not like. He struck 
every angle within reach of him. In the state of 
society then existing in the mines there were many 
things to vex his soul and keep him on the war- 
path! The miners looked upon him as a brave, 
good man. just a Httle daft. He worked a mining 
claim on Wood's Creek, north of town, and Hved 
alone in a tiny cabin on the hill above. That was 
the smallest of cabins, looking like a mere box 
from the trail which wound through the flat below. 
Two little scrub oaks stood near it, under which 
he sat and read his Bible in leisure moments. 
There, above the world, he could commune with 
his own heart and with God undisturbed, and look 
down upon a race he half pitied and half despised. 
From the spot the eye took in a vast sweep of hill 
and dale: Bald Mountain, the most striking ob- 
ject in the near background, and beyond its dark, 
ruo-ged mass the snowy summits of the Sierras, 
rising one above another, hke gigantic stairsteps, 
leading up to the throne of the Eternal. This 
lonely height suited Lowry's strangely compound- 
ed nature. As a cynic, he looked down with con- 
tempt upon the petty life that seethed and frothed 
in the camps below; as a saint, he looked forth 
upon the wonders of God's handiwork around 
and above him. There was an intensity in all 
that he did. Passing his mining claim on horse- 
back one day, I paused to look at him in his work. 
Clad in a blue flannel mining suit, he was digging 
as for life. The embankment of red dirt and 
gravel melted away rapidly before his vigorous 
strokes, and he seemed to feel a sort of fierce de- 



254 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

light in his work. Pausing a moment, he looked 
up and saw me. 

'' You dig as if you were in a hurry," I said. 

'* Yes, I have been digging here three years. 
I have a notion that I have just so much of the 
earth to turn over before I am turned under," he 
replied with a sort of grim humor. 

He was still there when we visited Sonora in 
1857. He invited us out to dinner, and we went. 
By skillful circling around the hill, we reached 
the little cabin on the summit with horse and 
buggy. The old man had made preparations for 
his expected guests. The floor of the cabin had 
been swept, and its scanty store of furniture put 
to rights, and a dinner was cooking in and on the 
little stove. His lady guest insisted on helping in 
the preparation of the dinner, but was allowed to 
do nothing further than to arrange the dishes on 
the primitive table, w^hich was set out under one 
of the Httle oaks in the yard. It was a miner's 
feast: can-fruits, can-vegetables, can-oysters, can- 
pickles, can-everything nearly, with tea distilled 
from the Asiatic leaf by a recipe of his own. It 
was a hot day, and from the cloudless heavens the 
sun flooded the earth with his glory, and the shim- 
mer of the sunshine was in the still air. We tried 
to be cheerful, but there was a pathos about the 
affair that touched us. He felt it too. More than 
once there was a tear in his eye. At parting, he 
kissed little Paul, and gave us his hand in silence. 
As we drove down the hill, he stood gazing after 
us with a look fixed and sad. The picture is stifl 
before me — the lonely old man standing sad and 
silent, the little cabin, the rude dinner service un- 
der the oak, and the overarching sky. That was 
our last meeting; the next will be on the other 
side. 



THE CALIFORNIA POLITICIAN. 

THE California politician of the early days 
was plucky. He had to be so, for faint 
heart won no votes in those rough times. 
One of the Marshalls (Tom or Ned, I 
forget which), at the beginning of a stump 
speech one night in the mines, was interrupted by 
a storm of hisses and execrations from a turbulent 
crowd of fellows, many of whom were full of 
whisky. He paused a moment, drew himself up 
to his full height, coolly took a pistol from his 
pocket, laid it on the stand before him, and said: 
"• I have seen bigger crowds than this many a 
time. I want it to be fully understood that I came 
here to make a speech to-night, and I am going 
to do it, or else there will be a funeral or two." 

That touch took with that c»-ovvd. The one 
thing they all believed in was courage. Marshall 
made one of his grandest speeches, and at the 
close the delighted miners bore him in triumph 
from the rostrum. 

That was a curious exordium of '' Uncle Peter 
Mehan," when he made his first stump speech at 
Sonora: "Fellow-citizens, I zvas boni an orphan 
at a very early period of my li'fe/' He was a 
candidate for supervisor, and the good-natured 
miners elected him triumphantly. He made a 
good supervisor, which is another proof that book 
learning and elegant rhetoric are not essential 
where there are integrity and native good sense. 
Uncle Peter never stole anything, and he was 
usually on the right side oi all questions that 

(255) 



256 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

claimed the attention of county fathers of Tuo- 
lumne. 

In the early days the Virginians, New Yorkers, 
and Tennesseeans led in politics. Trained to the 
stump at home, the Virginians and Tennesseeans 
were ready on all occasions to run a primary 
meeting, a convention, or a canvass. There was 
scarcely a mining camp in the State in which there 
was not a leading local politician from one or both 
of these States. The New Yorker understood all 
the inside management of party organization, and 
was up to all the smart tactics developed in the 
lively struggles of parties in the times when Whig- 
gery and Democracy fiercely fought for rule in 
the Empire State. Broderick was a New Yorker, 
trained by Tammany in its palmy days. He was 
a chief, who rose from the ranks, and ruled by 
force of will. Thick-set, strong-limbed, full- 
chested, with immense driving power in his back- 
head, he was an athlete whose stalwart physique 
was of more value to him than the gift of elo- 
quence, or even the power of money. The sharp- 
est lawyers and the richest money kings alike went 
down before this uncultured and moneyless man, 
who dominated the clans of San Francisco simply 
by right of his manhood. He was not without a 
sort of eloquence of his own. He spoke right to 
the point, and his words fell like the thud of a 
shillalah or rang like the clash of steel. He 
dealt with the rough elements of politics in an 
exciting and turbulent period of California poli- 
tics, and was more of a border chief than an 
Ivanhoe in his modes of warfare. He reached 
the United States Senate, and in his first speech in 
that august body he honored his manhood by an 
allusion to his father, a stone mason, whose hands, 
said Broderick, had helped to erect the very walls 



THE CALIFORNIA POLITICIAN. 257 

of the chamber in which he spoke. When a man 
gets as high as the United States Senate, there is 
less tax upon his magnanimity in acknowledging 
his humble origin than while he is lower down the 
ladder. You seldom hear a man boast how low 
he began until he is far up toward the summit of 
his ambition. Ninety-nine out of every hundred 
self-made men are at first more or less sensitive 
concerning their low birth ; the hundredth man 
who is not is a man indeed. 

Broderick's great rival was Gwin. The men 
were antipodes in everything except that they be- 
longed to the same party. Gwin still lives, the 
most colossal figure in the history of California. 
He looks the man he is. Of immense frame, rud- 
dy complexion, deep-blue eyes that almost blaze 
when he is excited, rugged yet expressive features, 
a massive head crowned with a heavy suit of sil- 
ver-w^hite hair, he is marked by nature for lead- 
ership. Common men seem dwarfed in his pres- 
ence. After he had dropped out of California 
politics for awhile, a Sacramento hotel keeper ex- 
pressed what many felt during a legislative session : 
'* I find m3'self looking around for Gwin. I miss 
the chief." 

My first acquaintance with Dr. Gwin began 
with an incident that illustrates the man and the 
times. It was in 1856. The Legislature was in 
session at Sacramento, and a United States Sena- 
tor was to be elected. I was making a tentative 
movement toward starting a Southern Methodist 
newspaper, and visited Sacramento on that busi- 
ness. My friend Maj. P. L. Solomon was there, 
and took a friendly interest in my enterprise. He 
proposed to introduce me to the leading men of 
both parties, and I thankfully availed myself of 
his courtesy. Among the first to whom he pre- 
17 



258 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

sented me was a noted politician who, both before 
and since, has enjoyed a national notoriety, and 
who still lives, and is as ready as ever to talk or 
fight. His name I need not give. I presented to 
him my mission, and he seemed embarrassed. 

"I am with you, of course. My mother was a 
Methodist, and all my sympathies are with the 
Methodist Church. I am a Southern man in all 
my convictions and impulses, and I am a South- 
ern Methodist in principle. But you see, sir, I 
am a candidate for United States Senator, and 
sectional feeling is likely to enter into the contest, 
and if it were known that my name was on your 
list of subscribers it might endanger my elec- 
tion." 

He squeezed my arm, told me he loved me and 
my Church, said he would be happy to see me 
often, and so forth — but he did not give me his 
name. I left him, saying in my heart: *' Here is 
a politician." 

Going on together, in the corridor we met 
Gwin. Solomon introduced me, and told him my 
business. 

" I am glad to know that you are going to start 
a Southern Methodist newspaper. No Church 
can do without its organ. Put me down on your 
list, and come with me, and I will make all these 
fellows subscribe. There is not much religion 
among them, I fear, but we will make them take 
the paper." 

This was said in a heart}^ and pleasant wa3% and 
he took me from man to man, until I had got- 
ten more than a dozen names, among them two or 
three of his most active political opponents. 

This incident exhibits the two types of the poli- 
tician, and the two classes of men to be found in 
all communities — the one all blarney and self- 



THE CALIFORNIA POLITICIAN. 259 



i( 



ishness, the other with real manhood redeemin 
poor human nature, and saving it from utter con- 
tempt. The senatorial prize eluded the grasp of 
both aspirants, but the reader will not be at a loss 
to guess whose side I was on. Dr. Gwin made a 
friend that day, and never lost him. It was this 
sort of fidelity to friends that, when fortune 
frowned on the grand old Senator after the col- 
lapse at Appomattox, rallied thousands of true 
hearts to his side, among whom were those who 
had fought him in many a fierce political battle. 
Broderick and Gwin were both, by a curious turn 
of political fortune, elected by the same Legisla- 
ture to the United States Senate. Broderick 
sleeps in Lone Mountain, and Gwin still treads 
the stage of his former glor}^, a living monument 
of the days when California politics was half ro- 
mance and half tragedy.* The friend and frotcge 
of Gen. Andrew Jackson, a member of the first 
Constitutional Convention of California, twice 
United States Senator, a prominent figure in the 
Civil War, the father of the great Pacific Railway, 
he is the front figure on the canvas of California 
history. 

Gwin was succeeded by McDougall. What a 
man was he ! His face was as classic as a Greek 
statue. It spoke the student and the scholar in 
every line. His hair was snow-white, his eyes 
bluish-gray, and his form sinewy and elastic. He 
went from Ilhnois, with Baker and other men of 
genius, and soon won a high place at the bar of 
San Francisco. I heard it said by an eminent 
jurist that when McDougall had put his whole 
strength into the examination of a case his side of 



* Senator Gwin has been dead many years, but was living 
when the foregoing Sketch was written. " The reader will par- 
don the anachronism therein. — The Author. 



260 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

it was exhausted. His reading was immense, his 
learning solid. His election was doubtless a sur- 
prise to himself, as well as to the California pub- 
lic. The day before he left for Washington City, 
I met him in the street, and as we parted I held 
his hand a moment, and said: "Your friends will 
watch your career with hope and with fear." 

He knew what I meant, and said quickly: "I 
understand you. You are afraid that I will yield 
to my weakness for strong drink; but you may be 
sure that I will play the man, and California shall 
have no cause to blush on my account." 

That was his fatal weakness. No one looking 
upon his pale, scholarly face, and noting his fault- 
lessly neat apparel, and easy, graceful manners, 
would have thought of such a thing. Yet he was 
a — I falter in writing it — a drunkard. At times 
he drank deeply and madly. When half intoxi- 
cated he was almost as brilliant as Hamlet, and as 
rollicking as Falstaff . It was said that even when 
fully drunk his splendid intellect never entirely 
gave wa}'. 

" McDougall commands as much attention in 
the Senate when drunk as any other Senator does 
when sober," said a Congressman in Washington 
in 1866. It is said that his great speech on the 
question of " Confiscation," at the beginning of 
the war, was delivered when he was in a state of 
semiintoxication. Be that as it may, it exhausted 
the whole question, and settled the policy of the 
government. 

I never saw him again. For the first few 
months he wrote me often, and then his letters 
came at longer intervals, and then they ceased. 
And then the newspapers disclosed the shameful 
secret — California's brilliant Senator was a drunk- 
ard. The temptations of the capital were too 



THE CALIFORNIA POLITICIAN. 261 

Strong for him. He went down into the black 
waters a complete wreck. He returned to the old 
home of his boyhood in New Jersey to die. I 
learned that he was lucid and penitent at the last. 
They brought his body back to San Francisco to 
be buried, and when at his funeral the words " I 
know that my Redeemer liveth," in clear soprano, 
rang through the vaulted cathedral like a peal of 
triumph, I indulged the hope that the spirit of my 
gifted and fated friend had, through the mercy of 
the Friend of sinners, gone from his boyhood hills 
up to the hills of God. 

The typical California politician was Coffroth. 
The " boys " fondly called him " Jim " Coffroth. 
There is no surer sign of popularity than a popu- 
lar abbreviation of this sort, unless it is a pet nick- 
name. Coffroth was from Pennsylvania, where 
he had gained an inkling of politics and general 
literature. He gravitated into California politics 
by the law of his nature. He was born for this, 
having what a friend calls the gift of popularity. 
His presence was magnetic ; his laugh was conta- 
gious ; his enthusiasm was irresistible. No one ever 
thought of taking offense at Jim Coffroth. He 
could change his politics with impunity, without 
losing a friend — he never had a personal enemy — 
but I beheve he only made that experiment once. 
He went off with the Know-nothings in 1855, and 
was elected by them to the State Senate, and was 
called to preside over their State Convention. He 
hastened back to his old party associates, and at 
the first convention that met in his county on his 
return from the Legislature he rose and told them 
how lonesome he had felt while astray from the 
old fold, how glad he was to get back, and how 
humble he felt, concluding by advising all his late 
supporters to do as he had done by taking "a 



262 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

straight chute" for the old party. He ended 
amid a storm of applause, was reinstated at once, 
and was made President of the next Democratic 
State Convention. There he was in his glor}-. 
His tact and good humor were unbounded, and 
he held those hundreds of excitable and explosive 
men in the hollow^ of his hand. He would dismiss 
a dangerous motion with a witticism so apt that 
the mover himself w^ould join in the laugh, and 
give it up. His broad face in repose w^as that of 
a Quaker, at other times that of a Bacchus. 
There w^as a religious streak in this jolly partisan, 
and he published several poems that breathed the 
sweetest and loftiest religious sentiment. The 
newspapers were a little disposed to make a joke 
of these ebullitions of devotional feeling, but they 
now make the light that casts a gleam of bright- 
ness upon the background of his life. I take 
from an old volume of the Christian Spectator 
one of these poems as a literar}" curiosity. Every 
man lives two lives. The rollicking politician, 
*'Jim Coffroth," every Californian knew; the au- 
thor of these lines was another man of the same 
name : 

Amid the Silence of the Night. 

" Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." (I's. cxxi. 4.) 

Amid the silence of the nijjht, 

Amid its lonely hours and dreary, 

When we close the aching sight, 
Musing sadly, lorn and weary, 

Trusting that to-morrow's light 
May reveal a day more cheery; 

Amid affliction's darker hour, 

When no hope beguiles our sadness, 

When death's hurtling tempests lower, 
And forever shroud our gladness, 

While grief's unrelenting power 

Goads our stricken hearts to madness; 



THE CALIFORNIA POLITICIAN. 263 

When from friends beloved we're parted, 

And from scenes our spirits love, 
And are driven, broken-hearted, 

O'er a heartless world to rove; 
When the woes by which we've smarted, 

Vainly seek to melt or move; 

When we trust and are deluded, 

When we love and are denied. 
When the schemes o'er which we brooded 

Burst like mist on mountain's side, 
And, from ev'ry hope excluded, 

We in dark despair abide- 
Then, and ever, God sustain us, 

He whose eve no slumber knows, 
Who controls each throb that pains us, 

And in mercy sends our woes, 
And by love severe constrains us 

To avoid eternal throes. 

Happy he whose heart obeys him! 

Lost and ruined who disown! 
O if idols e'er displace him, 

Tear them from his chosen throne! 
May our lives and language praise him! 

May our hearts be his alone! 

He took defeat with a good nature that robbed 
it of its sting, and made his poUtical opponents 
half sorry for having beaten him. He was talked 
of for Governor at one time, and he gave as a 
reason why he would like the office that *^ a great 
many of his friends were in the State prison, and 
he wanted to use the pardoning power in their be- 
half." This was a jest, of course, referring to 
the fact that as a lawyer much of his practice was 
in the criminal courts. He was never suspected 
of treachery or dishonor in public or private hie. 
His very ambition was unselfish: he was always 
ready to sacrifice himself in a hopeless candidacy 
if he could thereby help his party or a friend. 

His good nature was tested once while presiding 
over a party convention at Sonora for the nomina- 
tion of candidates for legislative and county of- 



264 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

fices. Among the delegates was the eccentric 
John Vallew, whose mind was a singular com- 
pound of shrewdness and flightiness and was 
stored with the most out-of-the-way scraps of 
learning, philosoph}^ and poetr}'. Some one pro- 
posed Vallew' s name as a candidate for the Leg- 
islature. He rose to his feet with a clouded face, 
and in an angr}^ voice said: "Mr. President, 
I am surprised and mortified. I have lived in 
this county more than seven years, and I have 
never had any difficulty with my neighbors. I 
did not know that I had an enemy in the world. 
What have I done, that it should be proposed 
to send me to the Legislature? What reason 
has any one to think I am that sort of a man? 
To think I should have come to this I To pro- 
pose to send me to the Legislature, when it is a 
notorious fact that you have never sent a man 
thither from this county who did not come hack 
morally and pecuniarily mined! " 

The crowd saw the point, and roared with 
laughter, Coffroth, who had served the previous 
session, joining heartily in the merriment. Val- 
Vallew w^as excused. 

Coffroth died suddenly, and his destiny was 
transferred to another sphere. So there dropped 
out of California life a partisan without bitterness, 
a satirist without malice, a wit without a sting, the 
jolliest, freest, readiest man that ever faced a 
California audience on the hustings — the typical 
politician of California. 



BISHOP KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 



HE came first in 1856. The Californians 
''took to" him at once. It was almost 
as good as a visit to the old home to see 
and hear this rosy-faced, benignant, and 
solid Kentuckian. His power and pa- 
thos in the pulpit were equaled by his humor and 
magnetic charm in the social circle. Many con- 
sciences were stirred. All hearts were won by 
him, and he holds them unto this day. We may 
hope, too, that many souls were won that will be 
stars in his crown of rejoicing in the day of Jesus 
Christ. 

At San Jose, his quality as a preacher was de- 
veloped by an incident that excited no little popu- 
lar interest. The (Northern) Methodist Confer- 
ence was in session at that place, the venerable 
and saintly Bishop Scott presiding. Bishop Kava- 
naugh was invited to preach, and it so happened 
that he was to do so on the night following an ap- 
pointment for Bishop Scott. The matter was talked 
of in the town, and not unnaturally a spirit of 
friendly rivalry was excited with regard to the 
approaching pulpit performances by the Northern 
and Southern bishops respectively. One enthu- 
siastic but not pious Kentuckian offered to bet a 
hundred dollars that Kavanaugh w^ould preach 
the better sermon. Of course the two venerable 
men were unconscious of all this, and nothing of 
the kind was in their hearts. The church was 
thronged to hear Bishop Scott, and his humilit3% 
strong sense, deep earnestness, and holv emotion 

(265) 



266 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

made a profound and happy impression on all 
present. The church was again crowded the next 
night. Among the audience were a considerable 
number of Southerners — wild fellows, w^ho were 
not often seen in such places, among them the en- 
thusiastic Kentuckian already alluded to. Kava- 
naugh, after going through with the preliminary 
services, announced his text, and began his dis- 
course. He seemed not to be in a good preaching 
mood. His wheels drove heavily. Skirmishing 
around and around, he seemed to be reconnoiter- 
ing his subject, finding no salient point for attack. 
The look of eager expectation in the faces of the 
people gave way to one of puzzled and painful 
solicitude. The heads of the expectant South- 
erners drooped a little, and the betting Kentuck- 
ian betrayed his feelings by a lowering of the 
under jaw and sundry nervous twitchings of the 
muscles of his face. The good Bishop kept talk- 
ing, but the wheels revolved slowdy. It w^as a sol- 
emn and '* trying time" to at least a portion of 
the audience, as the Bishop, with head bent over 
the Bible and his broad chest stooped, kept trying 
to coax a response from that obstinate text. It 
seemed a lost battle. At last a sudden flash of 
thought seemed to strike the speaker, irradiating 
his face and hfting his form as he gave it utter- 
ance, with a characteristic throwing back of his 
shoulders and upward sweep of his arms. Those 
present will never forget what followed. The 
afflatus of the true orator had at last fallen upon 
him; the mighty ship was launched, and swept 
out to sea under full canvas. Old Kentucky was 
on her feet that night in San Jose. It was inde- 
scribable. Flashes of spiritual illumination, ex- 
plosive bursts of eloquent declamation, sparkles 
of chastened wit, appeals of overwhelming inten- 



BISHOP KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 267 

sity, followed like the thunder and lightning of a 
Southern storm. The church seemed literally to 
rock. "Aniens" burst from the electrified Meth- 
odists of all sorts; these were followed by ''hal- 
lelujahs " on all sides; and when the sermon end- 
ed with a rapturous flight of imagination half the 
congregation were on their feet, shaking hands, 
embracing one another, and shouting. In the 
tremendous religious impression made, criticism 
was not thought of. Even the betting Kentuck- 
ian showed by his heaving breast and tearful eyes 
how far he was borne out of the ordinary channels 
of his thought and feeling. 

The Bishop came to Sonora, where I was pastor, 
to preach to the miners. It was our second year in 
California, and the paternal element in his nature 
fell on us like a benediction. He preached three 
noble sermons to full houses in the little church on 
the red hillside, but his best discourses were spo- 
ken to the young preacher in the tiny parsonage. 
Catching the fire of the old polemics that led to 
the battles of the giants in the West, he went over 
the points of difference between the Arminian and 
Calvinistic schools of theology in a way that left 
a permanent deposit in a mind which was just then 
in its most receptive state. We felt very lone- 
some after he had left. It was like a touch of 
home to have him with us then, and in his presence 
we have had the feeling ever since. What a home 
will heaven be where all such men will be gath- 
ered in one company! 

It was a warm day w^hen he went down to take 
the stage for Mariposa. The vehicle seemed to 
be already full of passengers, mostly Mexicans and 
Chinamen. When the portly Bishop presented 
himself, and essayed to enter, there wxre frowns 
and expressions of dissatisfaction. 



268 CALi:70RNIA SKETCHES. 

" Mucho malo ! " exclaimed a dark-skinned 
seTiorita with flashing black eyes. 

'* Make room in there — he's got to go," or- 
dered the bluff stage driver in a peremptory tone. 

There were already eight passengers inside, 
and the top of the coach was covered as thick as 
robins on a sumac bush. The Bishop mounted 
the step and surveyed the situation. The seat as- 
signed him w^as between two Mexican women, 
and as he sunk into the apparently insufficient 
space there was a look of consternation in their 
faces, and I was not surprised at it; but, scroug- 
ing in, the newcomer smiled, and addressed first 
one and then another of his fellow -passengers 
with so much friendly pleasantness of manner 
that the frowns cleared away from their faces, 
even the stolid, phlegmatic Chinamen brightening 
up with the contagious good humor of the " big 
Mellican man." When the driver cracked his 
whip, and the spirited mustangs struck off in the 
CaHfornia gallop — the early Californians scorned 
any slower gait — everybody was smiling. Stag- 
ing in CaHfornia in those days was often an excit- 
ing business. There were ** opposition " lines on 
most of the thoroughfares, and the driving was 
furious and reckless in the extreme. Accidents 
were strangely seldom when we consider the rate 
of speed, the nature of the roads, and the quanti- 
ty of bad whisky consumed by most of the driv- 
ers. Many of these drivers made it a practice to 
drink at every stopping place. Seventeen drinks 
were counted in one forenoon ride by one of 
these thirsty Jehus. The racing between the rival 
stages was exciting enough. Lashing the wiry 
little horses to full speed, there was but one 
thought, and that was, to *' get in ahead." A driv- 
er named White upset his stage between Montezu- 



BISHOP KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 269 

ma and Knight's Ferry on the Stanishius, breaking 
his right leg above the knee. Fortunatel}^ none 
of the passengers were seriously hurt, though 
some of them were a little bruised and frightened. 
The stage was righted, White resumed the reins, 
whipped his horses into a run, and, with his bro- 
ken limb hanging loose, ran into town ten minutes 
ahead of his rival, fainting as he was lifted from 
the seat. 

" Old man Holden told me to go in ahead or 
smash everything, and I made it!" exclaimed 
White, with professional pride. 

The Bishop was fortunate enough to escape 
with unbroken bones as he dashed from point to 
point over the California hills and valleys, though 
that heavy body of his was mightily shaken up on 
many occasions. 

He came to California on his second visit, in 
1863, when the war was raging. An incident oc- 
curred that gave him a very emphatic reminder 
that those were troublous times. 

He was at a camp m.eeting in the San Joaquin 
Valley, near Linden — a place famous for gather- 
ings of this sort. The Bishop was to preach at 
eleven o'clock, and a great crowd was there, full 
of high expectation. A stranger drove up just be- 
fore the hour of service — a broad-shouldered man 
in blue clothes, and wearing a glazed cap. He 
asked to see Bishop Kavanaugh privately. 

They retired to " the preachers' tent," and the 
stranger said: '' My name is Jackson — Col. Jack- 
son, of the United States Arm}^ I have a disa- 
greeable duty to perform. By order of Gen. Mc- 
Dowell, I am to place you under arrest, and take 
you to San Francisco." 

"Can 3^ou wait until T preach my sermon?" 
asked the Bishop- good-naturedly. " The people 



270 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

expect it, and I don't want to disappoint them if 
it can be helped." 

" How long will it take you? " 

** Well, I am a little uncertain when I get start- 
ed, but I will try not to be too long." 

"Very well; go on with your sermon, and if 
you have no objection I will be one of your 
hearers." 

The secret was known only to the Bishop and 
his captor. The sermon was one of his best — the 
vast crowd of people were mightily moved, and the 
Colonel's eyes were not dry when it closed. After 
a prayer and a song and a collection, the Bishop 
stood up again before the people, and said: "I 
have just received a message which makes it nec- 
essary for me to return to San Francisco immedi- 
ately. I am sorry that I cannot remain longer, 
and participate with you in the hallowed enjoy- 
ments of the occasion. The blessing of God be 
with you, my brethren and sisters." 

His manner was so bland, and his tone so se- 
rene, that nobody had the faintest suspicion as to 
what it was that called him away so suddenly. 
When he drove off with the stranger, the popular 
surmise was that it was a wedding or a funeral 
that called for such haste. There are two events 
in human life that admit no delays: people must be 
buried, and they will be married. 

The Bishop reported to Gen. Mason, provost 
marshal general, and was told to hold himself as 
in duress until further orders, and to be read}^ to 
appear at headquarters at short notice w^hen called 
for. He was put on parole, as it were. He came 
down to San Jose and stirred my congregation 
with several of his powerful discourses. In the 
meantime the arrest had gotten into the newspa- 
pers. Nothing that happens escapes the Califor- 



BISHOP KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 27 1 

nia journalists, and they have even been known 
to get hold of things that never happened at all. 
It seems that some one in the shape of a man had 
made an affidavit that Bishop Kavanaugh had 
come to the Pacific Coast as a secret agent of the 
Southern Confederacy, to intrigue and recruit in 
its interest. Five minutes' inquiry would have 
satisfied Gen. McDowell of the silliness of such a 
charge; but it was in war times, and he did not 
stop to make the inquiry. In Kentucky the good 
old Bishop had the freedom of the whole land, 
coming and going without hindrance ; but the 
fact was, he had not been within the Confederate 
lines since the war begfan. To make such an ac- 
cusation against him was the climax of absurdity. 

About three weeks after the date of his arrest, 
I was with the Bishop one morning on our way to 
Judge Moore's beautiful country seat, near San 
Jose, situated on the far-famed Alameda. The 
carriage was driven by a black man named Hen- 
ry. Passing the post office, I found, addressed 
to the Bishop in m}^ care, a huge document bear- 
ing the official stamp of the provost marshal's of- 
fice, San Francisco. He opened and read it, and 
as he did so he brightened up and, turning to Hen- 
ry, said: ** Henry, were you ever a slave?" 

" Yes, sah ; in Mizzoory," said Henry, showing 
his white teeth. 

" Did you ever get your free papers? " 

" Yes, sah — got 'em now." 

*' Well, I have got mine; let's shake hands." 

And the Bishop and Henry had quite a hand- 
shaking over this mutual experience. Henry en- 
joyed it greatly, as his frequent chucklings evinced 
while the judge's fine bays were trotting along the 
Alameda. 

(I linger on the word "Alameda " as I write it. 



272 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

It is at least one beneficent trace of the early Jes- 
uit fathers who founded the San Jose and Santa 
Clara Missions a hundred years ago. They planted 
an avenue of willows the entire three miles, and 
in that rich, moist soil the trees have grown until 
their trunks are of enormous size, and their 
branches, overarching the highway with their 
dense shade, make a drive of unequaled beauty 
and pleasantness. The horse cars have now tak- 
en away much of its romance, but in the early 
days it was famous for moonlight drives and their 
concomitants and consequences. A long-limbed 
four-year-old California colt gave me a romantic 
touch of a different sort, nearly the last time I 
was on the Alameda, by running away with the 
buggy, and breaking it and me — almost — to pieces. 
I am reminded of it by the pain in my crippled 
right shoulder as I write these lines in July, 1881. 
But still I say, Blessings on the memory of the fa- 
thers who planted the willows on the Alameda ! ) 

An intimation was given the Bishop that if he 
wanted the name of the false swearer who had 
caused him to be arrested he could have it. 

'' No ; I don't want to know his name," said he ; 
*' it will do me no good to know it. May God par- 
don his sin, as I do most heartily! " 

A really strong preacher preaches a great many 
sermons, each of which the hearers claim to be 
the greatest sermon of his life. I have heard of 
at least a half dozen '* greatest " sermons by Bas- 
com and Pierce, and other noted pulpit orators. 
But I heard one sermon by Kavanaugh that was 
probably indeed his master effort. It had a histo- 
ry. When the Bishop started to Oregon, in 1863, I 
placed in his hands Bascom's *' Lectures," which, 
strange to say, he had never read. Of these lec- 
tures the elder Dr. Bond said *' they would be the 



BISHOr KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 273 

colossal pillars of Bascom's fame when his printed 
sermons were forgotten." Those lectures won- 
derfully anticipated the changing phases of the 
materialistic intidelity developed since his day, and 
applied to them the reductio ad absurd uni with re- 
lentless and resistless power. On his return from 
Oregon, Kavanaugh met and presided over the 
Annual Conference at San Jose. One of his old 
friends, who was troubled with skeptical thoughts 
of the materialistic sort, requested him to preach 
a sermon for his special benefit. This request, and 
the previous reading of the lectures, directed his 
mind with intense earnestness to the topic suggest- 
ed. The result was, as I shall always think, the 
sermon of a lifetime. The text was, " There is a 
spirit in man : and the inspiration of the Almighty 
giveth . . . understanding." ( Job xxxii. 8. ) 
That mi^rhtv discourse was a demonstration of the 
truth of the afhrmation of the text. I will not at- 
tempt to reproduce it here, though many of its 
passages are still vivid in my memory. It tore to 
shreds the sophistries by which it was sought to 
sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that 
perish ; it appealed to the consciousness of his 
hearers in red-hot logic that burned its way to the 
inmost depths of the coldest and hardest hearts; 
it scintillated now and tlien sparkles of wit like 
the illuminated edges of an advancing thunder 
cloud; borne on the wings of his imagination, 
whose mighty sweep took him beyond the bounds 
of earth, through whirling worlds and burning 
suns, he found the culmination of human destiny 
in the bosom of eternitv, infinity, and God. The 
peroration was indescribable. The rapt audience 
reeled under it. Inspiration ! Tlie man of God 
was himself its demonstration, for the power of 
his word was not his own. 
18 



274 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

'* I thank God that he sent me here this day 
to hear that sermon ! I never heard an^^thing Hke 
it, and I shall never forget it, nor cease to be thank- 
ful that I heard it," said the Rev. Dr. Charles 
Wadsworth, of Philadelphia, the great Presbyterian 
preacher — a man of genius and a true prose-poet, 
as any one will concede after reading his pub- 
Hshed sermons. As he spoke, the tears were in 
his eyes, the muscles of his face quivering, and 
his chest heaving with irrepressible emotion. No- 
body who heard that discourse will accuse me of 
too high coloring in this brief description of it. 

*' Don't you wish you were a Kentuckian?" 
was the enthusiastic exclamation of a lady who 
brought from Kentucky a matchless wit and the 
culture of Science Hill Academy, which has 
blessed and brightened so many homes from the 
Ohio to the Sacramento. 

I think the Bishop was present on another occa- 
sion when the compliment he received was a left- 
handed one. It was at the Stone Church in Sui- 
sun Valley. The Bishop and a number of the 
most prominent ministers of the Pacific Conference 
were present at a Saturda3'-morning preaching ap- 
pointment. They had all been engaged in pro- 
tracted labors, and, beginning with the Bishop, one 
after another declined to preach. The lot fell at 
last upon a boyish-looking brother of very small 
stature, who labored under the double disadvan- 
tage of being a very young preacher and of hav- 
ing been reared in the immediate vicinity. The 
people were disappointed and indignant when they 
saw the little fellow go into the pulpit. None 
showed their displeasure more plainly than Uncle 
Ben Brown, a somewhat eccentric old brother, 
who was one of the founders of that society, and 
one of its best official members. He sat as usual 



BISHOP KAVANAUGH IN CALIFORNIA. 275 

on a front seat, his thick eyebrows fiercely knit, 
and his face wearing a heavy frown. He had ex- 
pected to hear the Bishop, and this was what it 
had come to! He drew his shoulders sullenly 
down, and, with his eyes bent upon the floor, 
nursed his wrath. The little preacher began his 
sermon, and soon astonished everybody by the en- 
ergy with which he spoke. As he proceeded, the 
frow^n on Uncle Ben's face relaxed a little; at 
length he Hfted his eyes and glanced at the speak- 
er in surprise. He did not think it was in him. 
With abnormal fluency and force, the Httle preach- 
er went on with the increasing sympathy of his 
audience, w^ho were feehng the effects of a gener- 
ous reaction in his favor. Uncle Ben, touched a 
little with honest obstinacy as he was, gradually 
relaxed in the sternness of his looks, straightened 
up by degrees until he sat upright facing the 
speaker in a sort of half-reluctant, pleased won- 
der. Just at the close of a specially vigorous 
burst of declamation, the old man exclaimed, in a 
loud voice: " Bless God! he uses ike lucak things 
of this zuorld to confound the mighty!'' casting 
around a triumphant glance at the Bishop and oth- 
er preachers. 

This impromptu remark was more amusing to 
the hearers than helpful to the preacher, I fear; 
but it was a way the dear old brother had of speak- 
ing out in meeting. 

I must end this sketch. I have dipped my pen 
in my heart in writing it. The subject of it has 
been friend, brother, father, to me since the day 
he looked in upon us in the little cabin on the hill 
in Sonora, in 1855. When I greet him on the hills 
of heaven, he will not be sorry to be told that 
among the many in the far West to w^hom he was 
helpful was the writer of this imperfect Sketch. 




A DAY. 

H, that blessed, blessed day! I had gone 
to the White Sulphur Springs, in Napa 
County, to get relief from the effects of 
the California poison oak. Gay deceiv- 
er ! With its tender green and pink 
leaves, it looks as innocent and smiling as sin 
when it wooes youth and ignorance. Like sin, it 
is found everywhere in that beautiful land. Many 
antidotes are used, but the onl}^ sure way of deal- 
ing wdth it is to keep away from it. Again there 
is an analogy: it is easier to keep out of sin than 
to get out when caught. These soft, pure white 
sulphur waters work miracles of healing, and at- 
tract all sorts of people. The w^eary and broken 
down man of business comes here to sleep and 
eat and rest; the woman of fashion, to dress and 
flirt; the loudly dressed and heavily bejew^eled 
gambler, to ply his trade ; happy bridal couples, 
to have the world to themselves ; successful and 
unsuccessful politicians, to plan future triumphs 
or brood over defeats; pale and trembling inva- 
lids, to seek healing or a brief respite from the 
grave ; families escaping from the wind and fog of 
the bay, to spend a few^ weeks where they can 
find sunshine and quiet. It is a little world in 
itself. The spot is every way beautiful, but its 
chief charm is its isolation. Though within a few 
hours' ride from San Francisco, and only two 
miles from a railroad station, you feel as if you 
were in the very heart of nature — and so you are. 
Winding along the banks of a sparkling stream, 
(276) 



A DAY. 277 

the mountains — great masses of leafy green — rise 
abruptly on either hand; the road bends this way 
and that until a sudden turn brings you to a little 
valley hemmed in all around by the giant hills. A 
bold, rocky projection just above the main hotel 
gives a touch of ruggedness and grandeur to the 
scene. How delicious the feelino- of rest that 
comes over you at once ! the world shut out, the 
hills around, and the sky above. 

It was in 1863, when the Civil War was at its 
white heat. Circumstances had given me unde- 
sired notoriety in that connection. I had been 
thrust into the very vortex of its passion, and my 
name made the rallying cry of opposing elements 
in California. The guns of Manassas, Cedar 
Mountain, and the Chickahominy were echoed in 
the foothills of the Sierras and in the peaceful 
valleys of the far-away Pacific Coast. The good 
sense of a practical people prevented any flagrant 
outbreak on a large scale, but here and there a too 
ardent Southerner said or did something that gave 
him a few weeks' or months' duress at Fort Alca- 
traz, and the honors of a bloodless martyrdom. 
I was then living at North Beach, in full sight of 
that fortress. It was kindly suggested by several 
of my brother editors that it would be a good place 
for me. When, as my eye swept over the bay in 
the early morning, the first sight that met my gaze 
were its rocky ramparts and bristling guns, the 
poet's line would come to mind: " 'Tis distance 
lends enchantment to the view." I was just as 
near as I wanted to be. *' I have good quarters 
for you," said the brave and courteous Capt. 
McDougall, who was in command at the fort; " and 
knowing your penchant^ I will let you have the 
freedom of a sunny corner of the island for fishing 
in good weather." He was a true gentleman. 



278 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

The name and image of another Federal officer 
rise before he as I write. It is that of the heroic 
soldier, Gen. Wright, who went down with the 
*' Brother Jonathan " on the Oregon coast in 1865. 
He was in command of the Department of the 
Pacific during this stormy period of which I am 
speaking. I had never seen him, and I had no 
special desire to make his acquaintance. Some- 
how Fort Alcatraz had become associated with 
his name for reasons already intimated. But, 
though unsought by me, an interview^ did take 
place. 

" It has come at last! " was my exclamation as 
I read the note left by an orderly in uniform no- 
tifying me that I was expected to report at the 
quarters of the commanding general the next day 
at ten o'clock. Conscious of my innocence of 
treason or any other crime against the govern- 
ment or society, my pugnacity was roused by this 
summons. Before the hour set for my appearance 
at the military headquarters, I was ready for mar- 
tyrdom or anything else — except Alcatraz. I 
didn't like that. The island was too small, and 
too foggy and windy, for my taste. I thought it 
best to obey the order I had received, and so, punc- 
tually at the hour, I repaired to the headquarters 
on Washington Street, and, ascending the steps 
with a firm tread and defiant feeling, I entered the 
room. Gen. Mason, provost marshal, a scholar 
and polished gentleman, politely offered me a 
seat. 

" No; I prefer to stand," I said stiffly. 

*' The General will see you in a few minutes," 
said he, resuming his work, while I stood nursing 
my indignation and sense of wrong. 

In a little while Gen. Wright entered — a tall, 
and striking figure, silver-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy- 



A DAY. 



279 



faced, witli a mixture of the dash of the soldier 
and the beni<;"nity of a bishop. 

Declining also his cordial invitation to be seated, 
I stood and looked at him, still nursing defiance, 
and getting ready to wear a mart3n-'s crown. The 
General spoke: "Did you know, sir, that I am 
perhaps the most attentive reader of your paper to 
be found in California? " 

" No; I was not aware that I had the honor of 
numbering the commanding general of this depart- 
ment among my readers." This was spoken 
with severe dignity. 

"A lot of hot-heads have for some time been 
urging me to have you arrested on the ground that 
you are editing and publishing a disloyal newspa- 
per. Not wishing to do any injustice to a fellow- 
man, I have taken means every week to obtain a 
copy of your paper, the Pacific Methodist ; and al- 
low me to say, sir, that no paper has ever come 
into my family which is such a favorite with all 
of us." 

I bowed, feeling that the spirit of martyrdom 
was coolino- within me. The General continued: 
*' I have sent for you, sir, that I might say to you, 
Go on in your present prudent and manly course, 
and while I command this department you are as 
safe as I am." 

There I stood, a whipped man, my pugnacit}^ 
all gone, and the martyr's crown away out of my 
reach. I walked softly downstairs, after bidding 
the General an adieu in a manner in marked con- 
trast to that in which I had greeted him at the be- 
ginning of the inter\aew. Now that it is all over, 
and the ocean winds have wailed their dirges for 
him so many long years, I would pay a humble 
tribute to the memory of as brave and knightly a 
man as ever wore epaulets or fought under the 



iSo CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

stars and stripes. He was of the t3^pe of Sidney 
Johnston, who fell at Shiloh, and of McPherson, 
who fell at Kennesaw — both Californians, both 
Americans, true soldiers, who had a sword for the 
foe in fair fight in the open field, and a shield for 
woman, and for the noncombatant, the aged, the 
defenseless. They fought on different sides to 
settle forever a quarrel that was bequeathed to 
their generation, but their fame is the common in- 
heritance of the American people. The reader 
is beginning to think I am digressing, but he will 
better understand what is to come after getting 
this glimpse of those stormy days in the sixties. 

The guests at the springs were about equally 
divided in their sectional sympathies. The gen- 
tlemen were inclined to avoid all exciting discus- 
sions, but the ladies kept up a fire of small arms. 
When the mails came in, and the latest news was 
read, comments were made with flashing eyes and 
flushed cheeks. 

The Sabbath morning dawned without a cloud. 
I awoke with the earliest song of the birds, and 
was out before the first rays of the sun had touched 
the mountain tops. The coolness was delicious, 
and the air was filled with the sweet odors of aro- 
matic shrubs and flowers, with a hint of the pine 
forests and balsam thickets from the higher alti- 
tudes. Taking a breakfast so/i/s, pocket Bible in 
hand, I bent my steps up the gorge, often crossing 
the brook that wound its way among the thickets 
or sung its song at the foot of the great overhang- 
ino; cliffs. A shininix trout would now and then 
flash like a silver bar for a moment above the 
shaded pools. With light step a doe descending 
the mountain came upon me, and, gazing at me a 
moment or two with its soft eyes, tripped away. 
In a narrow pass where the stream rippled over 



A DAY. 281 

the pebbles between two great walls of rock, a 
spotted snake crossed my path, hurr\'ing its move- 
ment in fright. Fear not, luimble ophidian. The 
war declared between thee and me in the fifteenth 
v^erse of the third chapter of Genesis is suspended 
for this one day. Let no creature die to-day but 
by the act of God. Here is the lake. How 
beautiful ! how still ! A landslide had dammed 
the stream where it flowed between steep, lofty 
banks, backing the waters over a little valley three 
or four acres in extent, shut in on all sides by the 
w^ooded hills, the highest of whicli rose from its 
northern margin. Here is my sanctuary, pulpit, 
choir, and altar. A gigantic pine had fallen into 
the lake, and its larger branches served to keep 
the trunk above the water as it lay parallel with 
the shore. Seated on its trunk, and shaded by 
some friendly willows that stretch their graceful 
branches above, the hours pass in a sort of sub- 
dued ecstasy of enjoyment. It is peace, the peace 
of God. No echo of the world's discords reaches 
me. The only sound I hear is the cooing of a 
turtledove away off in a distant gorge of the 
mountain. It floats down to me on tlie Sabbath 
air with a pathos as if it voiced the pity of Heav- 
en for the sorrows of a world of sin and pain 
and death. The shadows of the pines are reflect- 
ed in the pellucid depths, and ever and anon the 
faintest hint of a breeze sighs among their branches 
overhead. The lake lies without a ripple below, 
except when from time to time a gleaming trout 
throws himself out of the water, and, falling with a 
splash, disturbs the glassy surface, the concentric 
circles showing where he went down. Sport on, 
ye shiny denizens of the deep; no angler sliall 
cast his deceitful hook into your quiet haunts this 
day. Through the foliage of the overhanging 



282 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

boughs the bkie sky is spread, a thin, fleecy cloud 
at times floating slowly along like a watching an- 
gel, and casting a momentaiy shadow upon the 
watery mirror below. That sk}-, so deep and so 
solemn, wooes me — lifts m}^ thought till it touches 
the Eternal. What mysteries of being lie beyond 
that sapphire sea? What wonders shall burst 
upon the vision when this mortal shall put on im- 
mortality? I open the Book and read. Isaiah's 
burning song makes new music to my soul at- 
tuned. , David's harp sounds a sweeter note. The 
w^ords of Jesus stir to diviner depths. And when 
I read in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation 
the apocalyptic promise of the new^ heavens and 
the new earth, and of the New Jerusalem coming 
down from God out of heaven, a new glory seems 
to rest upon sky, mountain, forest, and lake, and 
my soul is flooded with a mighty joy. I am swim- 
ming in the Infinite Ocean. Not beyond that vast 
blue canopy is heaven; it is within m}^ own rav- 
ished heart! Thus the hours pass, but I keep no 
note of their flight, and the evening shadows are 
on the water before I come back to myself and 
the world. O hallowed day! O hallowed spot! 
foretaste and prophecy to the weary and burden- 
bowed soul of the new heavens and the new earth 
where its blessed ideal shall be a more blessed 
reality ! 

It is nearly dark when I get back to the hotel. 
Supper is over, but I am not hungr}^ — I have feast- 
ed on the bread of angels. 

*' Did you know there was quite a quarrel about 
you this morning?" asks one of the guests. 

The words jar. In answer to my look of in- 
quiry, he proceeds: *' There was a dispute about 
your holdincf a reliin'ous service at the picnic 
grounds. They made it a political matter — one 



A DAY. 283 

party threatened to leave if you did preach, the 
other threatened to leave if you did not preach. 
There was quite an excitement about it until it 
was found that you were gone, and then every- 
body quieted down." 

There is a silence. I break it by telling them 
how I spent the day, and then they are very 
quiet. 

The next Sabbath every soul at the place united 
in a request for religious service, the list headed 
by a high-spirited and brilliant Pennsylvania lady 
who had led the opposing forces the previous 
Sunday. 



CALIFORNIA TRAITS. 



CALIFORNIANS of the olden decades 
have never been surpassed in spontane- 
ous, princely generosity. If a miner were 
killed by a " cave," or premature explo- 
sion, it only took a few hours to raise 
five hundred or a thousand dollars for his widow. 
The veriest sot or tramp had only to get sick to be 
supplied with all that money could buy. There 
never was another people so open-handed to pov- 
erty, sickness, or the stranger. They were wild, 
wicked fellows, and made sad havoc of the great- 
er part of the Decalogue ; but if deeds of charity 
are put to the credit of the sinner, the recording 
angel smiled with inward joy as he put down 
many an item on the credit side of the eternal 
ledger. This trait distinguished all alike — saints 
and sinners, merchants and miners, gamblers and 
politicians, Jews and Gentiles, yankees and 
Southerners, natives and foreigners. Here and 
there would be found a mean, close-fisted fellow, 
who never responded to the appeals of that heav- 
enly charit}^ which kept the hearts of those fever- 
ish, excited, struggling men alive. But such a 
man was made to feel that he was an object of in- 
tense scorn. The hot-tempered adventurer who 
shot down his enemy in fair fight could be toler- 
ated, but not the miserly wretch who hoarded the 
dollar needed to save a fellow-man from want. 
Those Californians of the earlier days showed two 
traits in excess — a princely courage and a princely 
generosity; and their descendants will have in 
their traditions of them a source of inspiration that 
(284) 



CALIFORNIA TRAITS. 285 

will serve to perpetuate among them a brave and 
generous manhood. 

A notable exhibition of this spontaneous and 
princely generosity in the Californians took place 
in 1867. The war had left the South decimated, 
broken, impoverished — a land of grief and of 
graves. Already in 1866 the gaunt specter of fam- 
ine hovered over the fated South. The next year 
a general drought completed the catastrophe. The 
crops failed, there was no money, the war had 
stripped the Southern people of all but their lives 
and their land. It was a dark day. Starvation 
menaced hundreds of thousands of men, women, 
and children. 

A poor widow in Sonoma Count}^ reading in 
the newspapers the accounts given of the suffering 
in the South, sent me six dollars and fifty cents, 
with a note saying that she had earned the money 
by taking in washing. She added that it was but 
a mite, but it would help a little, leaving it to m}^ 
discretion to send it where it was most needed. 
Her modest note was published in the Christian 
Spectator, of which I was then editor. The pub- 
lication of that little note was like touchmg a 
spark to dry prairie grass. The hearts of the 
Californians were ready for the good work, and 
the poor Sonoma widow showed them the way to 
do it. From all parts of the State money poured 
in — by hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thou- 
sands of dollars, until directly and indirectly over 
ninety thousand dollars in gold was sent to the 
various relief committees in Baltimore, Macon, 
Nashville, Richmond, and other cities. The 
transmission of all this money cost not a dollar. 
The express companies carried the coin free of 
charge, the bankers remitted all charges on ex- 
change — all services were rendered gratuitously. 



286 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

The whole movement was carried out in true 
California style. A single incident will illustrate 
the spirit in which it was done. A week or two 
after the widow's note had been published I had 
occasion to visit San Jose. It was Saturday, the 
great day for traffic in that flourishing inland city. 
The streets were thronged with vehicles and 
horses and men and women, sauntering, trading, 
talking, gazing. The great center of resort was 
the junction of Santa Clara and First Streets. As 
I was pushing my way through the dense mass of 
human beings at this point, I met Frank Stewart* 
— filibuster, philosopher, mineralogist, and editor. 

''Wait here a moment,'' said Stewart to me. 

Springing into an empty express wagon, he 
cried, "O yes, O yes, O yes," after the manner 
of auctioneers. A crowd gathered around him 
with inquiring looks. I stood looking on, won- 
dering what he meant. "Fellow-citizens," said 
Stewart, '' while you are here enjoying prosper- 
ity and plenty, there is want in the homes of the 
South. Men, women, and children there are 
starving. They are our own countrymen, bone 
of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. We must 
send them help, and we must send it promptly. I 
tell you they are starving ! In many homes this 
very night hungry children will sob themselves to 
sleep without food ! But yonder I see an old 
neighbor, whom you all know," pointing to me. 
"He has recentlv visited the South, is in direct 
communication with it, and will be able to give us 
the facts in the case. Get up here where 3'ou 
can be seen and heard, and tell us what you know 
of the distress in the South." 

* Stewart was with Walker in Nicaragua, and wrote an en- 
tertaining narrative of that romantic and tragic historical epi- 
sode, entitled "The Last of the Filibusters." 



CALIFORNIA TRAITS. 287 

I attempted a retreat, but in vain. Almost be- 
fore I knew it they had me on the express wagon, 
talking to the crowd. It was a novel situation to 
me, and I felt awkward at first. The whole pro- 
ceeding was a surprise. But there was sympathy 
and encouragement in the upturned faces of those 
CaHfornians, and I soon felt at ease standing in 
my strange pulpit in the open air. My audience 
kept growing, the people deserting the street auc- 
tioneers, the stores, the saloons, and the side- 
walks, and pressing close around the express 
wagon. After describing scenes I had witnessed, 
I was giving some details of the latest news from 
the distressed locaHties, when a dark-skinned, 
grave-looking little man pressed his way through 
the crowd and silently laid a tive-dollar gold piece 
on the seat of the express wagon at my feet. An- 
other, another, and another followed. Not a 
word was spoken, but strong breasts heaved with 
emotion, and many a bronzed cheek was wet. I 
could not go on with my speech, but broke down 
completely. Still the money poured in. It seemed 
as if every man in tliat vast throng had caught the 
feeling of the moment. Never, even in the con- 
secrated temple, amid worshiping hundreds and 
pealing anthems and fervent prayers, have I felt 
that God was nearer than at that moment. At 
length there was a pause. Mr. Spring, the lively 
and good-natured auctioneer, rushed into his store 
across the street, and bringing out a gayly painted 
little cask of CaHfornia wine, put it into^ny hands, 
saying: *' Sell this for the benefit of the cause." 

This was indeed a new role to me. Taking the 
cask in my hands, and lifting it up before the 
crowd, I asked: "Who will give five dollars for 
this cask of wine, the money to go to help the 
starvinir? " 



288 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

'* I will," said a man from Ohio, standing di- 
rectl}^ in front of me, advancing and laying down 
the money as he spoke. 

" Who else will give five dollars for it? " 

*'I will"— "And r'— ''And I"— "And I"— 
the responses came thick and fast, until the gallon 
cask of wine had brought in eighty-five dollars. 
The last purchaser, a tall, good-natured fellow 
from Maine, said to me as he turned and walked 
off: " Take the cask home with you, and keep it 
as a momento of this day." 

The crowd scattered, and I gathered and count- 
ed the silver and gold that lay at my feet. It filled 
the canvas sack furnished by a friendly store- 
keeper, and ran high up into the hundreds. That 
was California ; the California in which still lin- 
gered the spirit of the early days. I descended 
from my impromptu rostrum, invoking a benedic- 
tion upon them and their children and their chil- 
dren's children, and it is reechoing in my heart as 
I write these lines, thousands of miles away on the 
banks of the Cum.berland in Tennessee. 

It ought to be added here that in this work of 
relief for the South Northern men and women 
were not a whit behind those from the South. 
The first subscriber to the fund, and the most ac- 
tive worker in its behalf in San Francisco, was 
Thomas H. Selby, a New Yorker of noble and 
princely spirit, whose subsequent death robbed 
California of one of its richest jewels. I am glad 
to claim national kinship with such people. 

On the afternoon before Thanksgiving Day, in 
eighteen hundred and sixty-something, two little 
girls came into my office, on Washington Street. 
One was a chubb}-, curly-headed little beauty, 
about five years old. The other was a crippled 
child, about ten, with a pale, suffering face and 



CALIFORNIA TRAITS. 289 

earnest, pleading blue eyes. She walked with 
crutches, and was out of breath when she got to 
the top of the long, narrow staircase in the third 
story of Reese's building, where I dispensed 
"copy'' for the printer and school law for the 
pedagogues in those days. The older girl handed 
me a note which she had brought in her thin, 
white hand. I opened the paper, and read these 
words: " I am lying sick on Larkin Street, near 
Sacramento, and there is not a mouthful to eat nor 
a cent of mone}' in the house." 

I recognized the signature as that of a man I 
had met at the Napa Springs two 3^ears before. 
He was then, as now, an invalid. 

I took my hat and cane, and followed the chil- 
dren. It was painful work for the crippled girl, 
climbing the hill in the face of the heavy wind 
from the sea. Often she had to pause and rest a 
few moments, panting for breath and trembling 
from weakness. When we reached the house, 
which was a rickety shanty, partly buried in the 
sand, a hollow-eyed, hopeless-looking w^oman met 
us at the door. She had the dull, weary look of 
a woman worn out with care and the loss of rest. 
On a coarse bedstead lay the invalid. As soon as 
he saw me he pulled the quilt over his head, and 
gave way to his feelings. Looking around, I was 
shocked to see the utter absence oX everything 
necessar}^ to the comfort of a family. They had 
parted with every article that would bring a little 
mone}' with which to buy food. Where the chil- 
dren, five in number, slept I could not conceive. 
Making a short stay, I went forth to send them 
relief. A genial, red-bearded New Hampshire 
man kept a grocery and provision store on the 
corner of Jackson and Stockton Streets. I liked 
him, and sometimes patronized him. I gave him 
19 



290 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the address of the needy family, and instructed 
him to send them everything they needed. Before 
sunset a heavy-laden wagon deposited such stores 
of eatables at the sand hill shanty as made the in- 
mates thereof wonder. When the bill was pre- 
sented it was evident that he had not charged 
half price. I knew my man. 

The next day my purpose was to go to Calvar}' 
Church and hear a sermon from the brilliant Dr. 
Charles Wadsworth, with whom striking and elo- 
quent Thanksgiving sermons had long been a spe- 
cialty. On my w^ay to church I thought of the 
helpless famil}- in the sand hills, and I resolved 
to change my Thanksgiving programme. The 
thought was suggested to my mind that I would go 
up one side of Montgomery Street and down the 
other, and ask every acquaintance I should hap- 
pen to meet for a contribution to the family on 
Larkin Street. The day was lovely, and all San 
Francisco was on the streets. (You must go to 
California to learn how delightful a November day 
can be.) Before I had gone two squares so much 
specie had been given me that I found it neces- 
sary to get a sack to hold it. On the corner of 
California Street I came upon Col. Eyre and a 
knot of other brokers, ten in number, every one 
of whom gave me a five-dollar gold piece. By the 
time I had gotten back to my starting point the 
canvas sack was full of gold and silver. I took it 
at once to Larkin Street. 

The sad, hollow-eyed woman met me at the 
door. I handed her the sack. She felt its weight, 
began to tremble, staggered to the bed, and sink- 
ing down upon it burst into a fit of violent weep- 
ing. The reaction was too sudden for her — poor, 
worn creature ! The sick man also cried, and the 
children cried; and I am not sure that my own 



CALIFORNIA TRAITS. 29I 

eyes were dry. I left them very soon, and wend- 
ed my way homeward to my cottage on the west- 
ern edge of Russian Hill, above the sea. My 
Thanksgiving dinner was enjoyed that day. 

About seven years afterwards a man overtook 
me on the street in San Francisco, and, grasping 
my hand warmly, called me by name: "Don't 
you know me? Don't you remember the man to 
whom you brought that money on Thanksgiving 
Day, seven years ago? I'm the man. That 
money made my fortune. I was able to obtain 
medicines and comforts which before I had not 
the means to buy; m}- mind was relieved of its 
load of anxiety; my health began to improve from 
that day, and now I am a well man, prosperous in 
business, and with as happy a family around me 
as there is on earth." What more he said as he 
held and pressed my hand need not be repeated. 

If we search for the cause of this CaHfornia 
trait of character, perhaps it may be found in the 
fact that the early Californians were mostly ad- 
venturers. (Please remember that this word has 
a good as well as a bad sense.) Their own vicis- 
situdes and wrestlings with fortune gave them a 
vivid realization of the feelings of a fellow-man 
struggling with adversity. It was a great Broth- 
erhood of Adventure, from whose fellowship no 
man was excluded. They would fight to the 
death over a disputed claim ; thc}^ would too often 
make the strong hand the test of right: they gave 
their animal passions free plav and enacted bloody 
tragedies; but they never shut their purses against 
the distressed, nor turned a deaf ear to the voice 
of sorrow. Doubtless the ease and rapidity with 
which fortunes were made in the earl\' days also 
contributed to produce this free-handedness. A 
man who made, or hoped to make, a fortune in a 



292 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

week did not stop to count the money he spent on 
his schemes, his passions, or his charities. Cases 
came to my knowledge in which princely fortunes 
were squandered by a week of debauch with 
cards, wine, and women. 

A sailor struck a '' pocket " on Wood's Creek, 
and took out forty thousand dollars in two days. 
He went into town, deposited the dust, drew sev- 
eral thousand dollars in coin, and entered upon a 
debauch. In a day or two the coin was exhaust- 
ed, the gamblers, saloon keepers, and bad women 
having divided it between them. Half crazed 
with drink, he called for his gold dust, and, taking 
it to the "Long Tom," he began to bet heavily 
against a faro bank. Staking handfuls of the 
shining dust, he alternately won and lost until, be- 
coming .excited beyond control, he staked the en- 
tire sack of gold dust, valued at twent3'-eight 
thousand dollars, on a single card, and — lost, of 
course. He went to bed and slept off the fumes 
of his drunkenness, got money enough to take 
him to San Francisco, where he shipped as a 
common sailor on a vessel bound for Shanghai. 
He expressed no regret for the loss of his treas- 
ure, but boasted that he had a jolly time while it 
lasted. 

In Sonora there was a rough, whisky-loving 
fellow named Bill Ford, who divided his time be- 
tween gambling, drinking, and deer hunting. 
One day he took his rifle and sallied forth in 
search of venison. He wandered among the hills 
for several hours without finding any game. 
Reaching a projection of Bald Mountain, a few 
hundred yards below the summit, tired and hot, 
he threw himself on the ground to rest under the 
shade of a stunted tree. In an idle way he began 
to dig into the rotten quartz with his hunting 




"Jfs «,>ld. 



(203) 



294 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

knife, thinking such thoughts as would come into 
the mind of such a harum-scarum fellow under 
the circumstances. "What's this?" he suddenly 
exclaimed. "Hurrah! I have struck it I It's 
gold! It's gold! " 

And so it was gold. Bill had struck a "pock- 
et," and a rich one. His deer hunt was a luck}' 
one after all. Marking well the spot, he lost no 
time in getting back to Sonora, where he pro- 
vided himself with a strong-, iron-bound water 
bucket, and then returned with his treasure, w^hich 
amounted to fort}- thousand dollars. The "pock- 
et" w^as exhausted. Though much labor and 
money w^ere expended in the search, no more 
gold could be found there. Bill took his gold to 
town, and was the hero of the hour. Only one 
way of celebrating his good fortune occurred to 
his mind. He w^ent on a big spree — whisky, 
cards, etc. He was a quarrelsome and ugly fel- 
low when drinking. The very next day he got 
into a fight at the City Hotel and was shot dead, 
leaving the most of his bucketful of gold dust un- 
spent. The time and manner of Bill's death w^as, 
in its result, the best thing know^i of his history. 
A strange thing happened: the money found its 
way to his mother in Pennsylvania, every dollar 
of it. Public sentiment aided the public adminis- 
trator in doing his dut}^ in this case. It was a 
common saying among the Californians in those 
days that when an estate was taken charge of by 
that functionary the legal heirs had small show of 
getting any part of it. It is but just to say, how- 
ever, that there was a latent moral sense among 
the Californians that never failed to condemn the 
faithless public servant. They did not take time 
to prosecute him, but they made him feel that he 
was despised. 



FATHER ACOLTI. 



I FIRST met him one day in 1857 in the Santa 
Cruz Mountains. Stopping at a sort of way- 
side inn near the summit to water my horse, a 
distinguished-looking man, who stood by his 
buggy with a bucket in his hand, saluted me: 
" Good morning, sir. You wish to water your 
horse; may I wait on you?" 

His manner would have melted in a moment a 
whole mountain of conventional ice, it was so cor- 
dial and so spontaneous. Disregarding m}- mild 
protest against being waited on by my senior, he 
filled the bucket from the sparkling fountain, and 
gave it to the thirsty animal, still panting from the 
long climb up the mountain side. In the mean- 
time we had exchanged names and occupations. 
He, Father Acolti, a priest and teacher in the Jes- 
uit College at Santa Clara; and I, the writer of 
these humble Sketches. As he stood there be- 
fore me, he looked like anything rather than a 
disciple of Ignatius Loyola. He was sturdy and 
fat, yet refined and graceful in appearance. His 
features were large, his head massive, his expres- 
sion one of great benignity, illuminated w^ith fre- 
quent flashes of good humor. There was also 
about him a something that suggested that he had 
suffered. I fell in love wnth Father Acolti on the 
spot. When he drove down the mountain on the 
one side, and I on the other, it really seemed as if 
the grand redwoods had caught a friendlier look 
and the wild honeysuckles a richer fragrance from 
the sunny-faced old priest. The tone of human 

(295) 



296 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

companionship wonderfully modifies the aspects 
of external nature. 

Father Acolti and I met often after this. On 
the highway, in the social circles of the lovely 
Santa Clara Valley, and especially in the abodes 
of sickness and povert}-, I crossed his path. He 
seemed to have an instinct that guided him to the 
needy and the sorrowing. It is certain that the 
instinct of suffering souls led them to the presence 
of the old priest, whose face was so fatherly, v/hose 
voice was so gentle, whose eye melted so readily 
with pity, and whose hand was so quick to extend 
relief. 

There was a tinge of romance in Father Acolti's 
history, as it was told to me. He was an Italian 
of noble birth. A beautiful woman had given him 
her heart and hand, and before one year of wed- 
ded happiness had passed she died. The young 
nobleman's earthly hope and ambition died with 
her. He sold his estates, visited her tomb for the 
last time, and then, renouncing the world, applied 
for admission into the mysterious order of the 
Society of Jesus, an organization whose history 
makes the most curious chapter in the record of 
modern religious conflict. Having served his no- 
vitiate, he was ready for work. His scientific at- 
tainments and tastes naturally drew him to the 
work of education, and doubtless he heartily re- 
sponded to the command to repair to California as 
one of a corps of teachers who were to lay the 
foundations of an educational system for the Ro- 
man Catholic Church. But in reality the Jesuits 
had entered California nearly ninety years before, 
and laid the foundations upon which their succes- 
sors are now building. The old mission churches, 
with their vineyards and orchards, are the monu- 
ments of their zeal and devotion. The California 



FATHKR ACOLTI. 297 

Digger Indians were the subjects of the mission- 
ary zeal of the early Jesuit fathers; and whether 
the defect was in the methods of the teachers or 
in the capabilities of their Indian neophytes, the ef- 
fort to elevate these poor red brethren of ours to 
the plane of Christian civilization failed. They are 
still savages, and on the path to extinction. The 
Digger will become neither a citizen nor a Chris- 
tian. In the conflict of vigorous races on the Pa- 
cific Coast he has no chance to survive. The Jes- 
uits deserve credit for what they attempted in be- 
half of the Indians. We Protestants, who claim a 
purer faith and better methods, have as yet done 
but little to arrest the process of their extirpation, 
or elevate them in the scale of humanity. I fear 
we have been but too ready to conclude that these 
poor people are not included in the command to 
preach the gospel to every creature. The sight of 
a Digger Indian camp makes a heavy draft upon 
Christian faith — but did not Christ die for them ? 

One fact in Father Acolti's history invested him 
with peculiar interest in the minds of the people: 
he was of noble blood. I do not know how many 
persons in the Santa Clara Valley whispered this 
secret to me as a fact of great importance. Dem- 
ocrats and Republicans as they are in theory, no 
people on earth have in their secret hearts a pro- 
founder reverence for titles of nobility than the 
Americans. From Fatlier Acolti liimself no hint 
of anything of the kind was ever heard. He 
never talked of himself. Nor did I ever hear him 
mention his religious views, except in ver}- gen- 
eral terms. It is said, and perhaps truly, that the 
Jesuits are all propagandists by profession ; but 
this old priest made you forget that he was any- 
thing but a genial and lovable old gentleman with 
fine manners and a magnetic presence. 



298 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

After m}' removal ^o San Francisco, he too 
was transferred to the metropolis, and assigned to 
duty in connection with the Jesuit church and col- 
lege, on Market Street. Here again I found his 
tracks wherever I went among the poor and the 
miserable. Whether it was a dying foreigner in the 
sand hills, a young man without money hunting 
for work, a poor widow bewildered and helpless 
in her grief, a woman with a drunken husband and 
a house full of hungry children, a prisoner in the 
jail, or a sick man in the hospital — Father Acolti's 
hand was sure to be found in any scheme of relief. 
Meeting him on the street, you would catch a 
glow from his kind face and friendly voice, and 
in most instances leave him with a smile at some 
little pleasantry that rippled forth as he stood with 
his hand resting familiarly on your shoulder. He 
loved his little joke, but it was never at the ex- 
pense of any human being, and his merriment 
never went farther than a smile that brightened all 
over his broad face. There was that about him 
that repelled the idea of boisterous mirth. The 
shadow of a great sorrow still lay in the back- 
ground of his consciousness, shading and soften- 
ing his sky, but not obscuring its light. As his 
step grew feebler, and it became evident that his 
strength was failing, this shadow seemed to 
deepen. There was a wistful look in his eyes 
that spoke of a longing for Italy, for his buried 
love, or for heaven. There were tears in his eyes 
when we parted in the street for the last time, as 
he silently pressed my hand and walked slowly 
away. I was not surprised when the news reached 
me soon after that he was dead. I trust that our 
next meeting will be where no shadow shall dim 
the light that shines on us both. 



CALIFORNIA WEDDINGS. 



IF the histories connected with the California 
vveddinos that I have attended could be writ- 
ten out in lull, what tragedies, comedies, and 
farces would excite the tears and smiles of 
the susceptible reader! Orange blossoms and 
pistols are mingled in the matrimonial retrospect. 
The sound of merry wedding bells, the wails of 
iieart-broken grief, and the imprecations of des- 
perate hate echo in the ear of memory as 1 begin 
this chapter on " California Weddings." Nothing 
else could give a better picture of the vanishing 
phases of the social life of California. But pru- 
dence and good taste restrain my pencil. Too 
many of the parties are still living, and the subject 
is too delicate to allow entire freedom of delinea- 
tion. A guarded glance is all that may be allowed. 
No real names will be called. 

Mounted on *' Old Frank " one clear, bracing 
morning in 1856, I was galloping along the high- 
way between Peppermint Gulch and Sonora, 

when I overtook a lawyer named G , who was 

noted for his irascible temper and too ready dis- 
position to fight, but whose talents and energy had 
won for him a leading position at the bar. It was 
an exhilarating ride as we dashed on at a swing- 
ing pace, the cool breeze kissing our faces, the 
blue sky above, the surrounding hills softened by 
shadows at their bases and glowing wnth sunshine 
on their tops. The reader w^ho has never had a 
gallop among the foothills of California in clear 
weather has missed one of life's supremest pleas- 

(299) 



300 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

ures. The air is electric, every nerve tingles, the 
blood seems turned to ether. You feel as you do 
when you fly in dreaming. It is not merely pleas- 
ure ; it is ecstacy. 

But little was said by us. The pace was too 
rapid for conversation, and neither of us was in 
the mood for commonplaces. My fellow-horse- 
man's face, usually wearing half a sneer and half 
a frown, bore an expression I had never seen on 
it before. It was an expression of gentleness and 
thoughtfulness, and it became him so well that I 
found myself frequently turning to look at him. 
Suddenly reining in his horse, he cried to me: 
'* Stop, parson; I have something to say to you." 

Checking " Old Frank," I waited for him to 
come up with me. 

'* Will you be at home to-morrow?" 

" Yes, I shall be at home." 

" Then come to this address at one o'clock, 
prepared to perform a marriage ceremon3^" 

Penciling the address on a slip of paper, he 
handed it to me, and we rode on, resuming the 
rapid gallop which was the only gait known to the 
early Californians. 

The next day I was punctual to the appoint- 
ment. In the parlor of one of the coziest little 
cottages in the lower part of the city I found a 
number of lawyers and other well-known citizens, 
with several women. The room was tastefully 
decorated with flowers of exquisite odor. A beau- 
tiful little girl about four years old came into the 
apartment. Richly and tastefully dressed, perfect- 
ly formed, elastic and graceful in her movements, 
with dark eyes, brilliant and large, and cheeks 
glowing with health, she was a sweet picture of 
fresh and innocent childhood. She looked around 
upon the guests, shyly declining the caresses that 




^* I TVaited for hint to conic iif.'' 



(301) 



302 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

were offered her. Taking a seat by one of the 
women, she sat silent and wondering. 

*' Isn't she a perfect beauty I " said Dr. A , 

whose own subsequent marriage made a strange 
chapter in the social annals of the place. 

"Yes; she is a little queen. And I am glad 
for her sake that this affair is to come off," said 
another. 

In a few minutes G entered the room with 

a woman on his arm. She was fair and slender, 
with a weak mouth and nervous manner. Traces 
of tears were on her cheeks, but she was smiling. 
The company rose as I advanced to meet them, 
and remained standing while the solemn ceremony 
was being pronounced which made them husband 
and wife. When the last words were said they 

kissed each other, and then G , yielding to a 

sudden impulse, caught up the little girl in his 
arms and almost smothered her with passionate 
kisses. Not a word was spoken, but many eyes 
were wet. 

The guests were soon led into another room, in 
which a sumptuous repast was spread, and when 
I left champagne corks were popping, and it was 
evident that the lately silent company had found 
their tongues. Toasts, songs, and speeches were 
said and sung in honor of the joyful event just con- 
summated — the marriage of this couple which 
ought to have taken place five years sooner. A 
little child had led the sinners back into the path 
from which, through passion and weakness, they 
had strayed. 

It was after nine o'clock one night in the fall of 
the same year that, hearing a knock at the door, I 
opened it, and found that my visitor was Edward 

C , a young man who was working a mining 

claim on Dragoon Gulch, near town. 



CALIFORNIA WEDDINGS. 303 

"Annie R and I intend to get married to- 
night, and we want you to perform the ceremony," 
he said, not waiting for ordinary salutations. 

** Isn't this a strange and sudden affair? " 

*' Yes; it's a runaway match. Annie is under 
age, and her guardian will not give his consent." 

" If that is the case, you will have to go to some- 
body else. The law is plain, and I cannot violate 
it." 

"When you know all the facts you will think 
differently." 

He then proceeded to give me the facts in the 
case, which, briefly told, were these: He and An- 
nie B loved each other, and had been en- 
gaged for several months, with the understanding 
that they were to be married when she should 
come of age. Annie had a few thousand dollars 
in the hands of her brother-in-law, who was also 
her legal guardian. This brother-in-law^ had a 
brother, a drunken, gambling, worthless fellow, 
whom he wished Annie to marry. She loathed 
him, and repelled the proposition with indignation 
and scorn. The brother and brother-in-law per- 
sisted in urging the hateful suit, having, it was 
thought, fixed a covetous eye on Annie's conven- 
ient little patrimony. Force had even been used, 
and Annie was deprived of her liberty and locked 
in her room. Her repugnance to the fellow in- 
creased the more he tried to make himself agreeable 
to her. A stormy scene had taken place that day. 

"I will never marr}' him— never! I will die 
first! " Annie had exclaimed in a burst of passion, 
at the close of a long altercation. 

"You are a foolish, undutiful girl, and will be 
made to do it," was the angry reply of the broth- 
er-in-law, as he turned the key in the door and 
closed the interview. 



304 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Late that afternoon Annie was on the street with 
her sister; and meeting her lover, they arranged to 
be married at once. She went to the house of a 
friendly family, while he undertook to get a min- 
ister and make other preparations for the event. 

"This is the situation," said the expectant 
bridegroom. " The only way by which I can get 
the right to protect Annie is to marry her. If 3'ou 
will not perform the ceremony, we'll get a justice 
of the peace to do it. Annie shall never go back 
to that house. We intend to be married this 
night, come what may! 

I confess that I liked his spirit, and my sympa- 
thies responded to the appeal made to them. He 
seemed to read as much in my face, for he added 
in an offhand way: " Get your hat and come 
along. They are all waiting for you at D 's." 

On reaching the house I found that quite a 
little company of intimate friends had been sum- 
moned, and the diminutive sitting room was 
crowded with men, women, and children. The 
bride was seated in the midst, a pretty, blue-eyed, 
fair-complexioned girl of seventeen. As I looked 
at her I could not blame her lover for risking 
something for such a prize. Women were then at 
a premium in the mines, and such lovely speci- 
mens as Annie would have been in demand an}^- 
where. She blushed and smiled at the rather 
rough jokes of the good-natured company present, 

and when she stood up with C to take the vows 

that were to unite them for life they were a hand- 
some and happy pair. 

The ceremony finished, the congratulations 
were hearty, the blushing bride having to stand a 
regular osculatory fire, according to the custom. 
Refreshments were then distributed ; and seated 
on the bed, on chairs, stools, and boxes, drafted 



CALIFORNIA WEDDINGS. 305 

for the occasion, the deUghted guests gave them- 
selves up to social enjoyment. 

*'What is that?" exclaimed a dozen voices at 
once as the most terrific sounds burst forth all 
around the house, as if pandemonium had broken 
loose. The bride, whose nerves had already been 
under high tension all day, fainted, the women 
screamed, and the children yelled with fright. 

" It's onl}^ a charivari'' {shivaree Anglice), 
said the tall, red-haired head of the famil}^, grin- 
ning. "I was afraid the boys would find out 
what was going on." 

In the meantime the discord raged outside. It 
seemed as if everything that could make a partic- 
ularly unpleasant sound had been brought into 
service — tin pans, cracked horns, crippled drums, 
squeaking whistles, fiddles out of tune, accordions 
not in accord, bagpipes that seemed to know that 
they must do their worst — the whole culminating 
in the notes of a single human voice, the most vile 
and discordant ever heard. It was equally impos- 
sible not to be angry, and not to laugh. The 
bridegroom, an excitable man of Celtic blood, 
taking the demonstration as an insult, threatened 
to shoot into the crowd of musicians, but was per- 
suaded to adopt a milder course — namely, to treat. 
That was the law in the mines, and it was a bold 
man who would try to evade it. The only means 
of escape was utter secrec}', and somehow or 
other it is next to impossible to conceal an im- 
pending wedding. It is a sweet secret that the 
birds of the air will whisper, and it becomes the 
confidential possession of the entire community. 

Opening the door, C was greeted by a cheer, 

the music ceasing for a moment. "Come, boys, 
let's go to the Placer Hotel and take something," 
said he, forcing a cheerful tone. 
20 



306 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

Three cheers for the bridegroom and bride 
were proposed and given with a will, and the 
party filed away in the darkness, their various in- 
struments of discord emitting desultory farewell 
notes, the last heard being the tootings of a horn 
that seemed to possess a sort of ventriloquial qual- 
ity, sounding as if it were blown under ground. 

The brother-in-law made no objection to the 
wedding. Public opinion was too clearly against 
him. All went smoothly with the young married 
couple. It was a love match, and they were con- 
tent in their little one-roomed cottage at the foot 
of the hill. When I last heard from them they 
were living near the same spot, poor but happy, 
with a family of eleven children, ranging from a 
fair-haired girl of nineteen, the counterpart of An- 
nie B in 1856, to a chubby little Californian 

of three summers, who bears the image and takes 
the name of his father. 

While busily engaged one day in mailing the 
weekly issue of the Pacific Methodist^ at the office 
near the corner of Montgomery and Jackson 
Streets, San Francisco, a dusty, unshaved man 
with a slouch hat came into the room. His man- 
ner was sheepish and awkward, and my first im- 
pression was that he wanted to borrow money. 
There is a peculiar manner about habitual borrow- 
ers which is readily recognized after some experi- 
ence with them. My visitor sat and toyed with 
his hat, making an occasional remark about the 
weather and other commonplaces. I answered 
affably, and kept on writing. At length, with a 
great effort, he said: '* Do 3^ou know anybody 
about here that can marry folks? " 

I answered in the affirmative. 

"Maybe you mought do it?" he said inquir- 
ingly. 



CALIFORNIA WEDDINGS. 307 

I told him I thought I " mought/' being a min- 
ister of the gospel. 

*' Well, come right along with me. The woman 
is waiting at the hotel, and there's no time to lose. 
The boat leaves at two o'clock." 

Seeing me making some adjustment of a disor- 
dered necktie, he said impatiently: '* Don't wait 
to fix up. I tell you the boat leaves at two 
o'clock." 

I followed him to the Tremont House, and as 
we entered the parlor he said, '' Git up, old lady; 
that thing can be put through now," addressing a 
very stout, middle-aged woman with a frowsy 
head, sitting near a window. 

The lady addressed in this offhand way rose to 
her feet and took her place by the side of the not 
very bridegroomish gentleman who had been my 
conductor. 

" Do you not want any witnesses?" I asked. 
''We haven't time to wait for witnesses; the 
boat will leave at two o'clock," said the man. 
'' Go on with 3' our ceremon3^" 

I began the ceremony, she looking triumphant 
and detiant, and he subdued and despondent. 
There were two children in the room, a freckle- 
faced boy and a girl, the boy minus an eye, and 
their peculiar behavior attracted my attention. 
They kept circling around the bridal party, eying 
me curiously and resentfully, the one eye oi the 
boy giving him a look both comic and sinister. 
The woman's responses were loud and strong, the 
man's feebl- and low. Evidently he did not en- 
joy the occasion — he was marrying under inward 
protest. (The landlord's explanation accounted 
for that, but it is withheld here.) 

'' What do you charge for that? " said the bride- 
groom as I concluded the ceremonv. 



308 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

1 made some conventional remark about '* the 
pleasure of the occasion being an ample compen- 
sation," or words to that effect. In the mean- 
time he had with some difficulty untied a well- 
worn buckskin purse, from which he took a ten- 
dollar gold piece, which he tendered me with the 
remark : ' ' Will that do ? " 

I took it. It would not have been respectful to 
decline. 

"You may go now," said the newly married 
man. "The boat will start at two o'clock, and 
we must be off." 

The whole transaction did not take more than 
ten minutes. I trust the bridal party did not miss 
that boat. The one-eyed boy gave me a malevo- 
lent look as I started down the stairs. 

One day in 1869 a well-known public man came 
to my office and asked a private interview. Tak- 
ing him into the rear room and closing the door, I 
invited him to unfold his errand. 

" There is trouble betvv'een my wife and me. 
The fact is, I have done wrong, and she has found 
it out. She is a good woman, but ver\^ peculiar, 
and if something is not done speedily I fear she 
will become deranged. I am uneasy about her 
nowc She says that nothing will satisfy her but 
for me to solemnly repeat, in the presence of a 
minister of the gospel, the marriage vows I have 
violated. I am willing to do anything I can to 
satisfy her. Will you name an hour for us to 
call at your office for the purpose of being re- 
married ? " 

" The suggestion is such a strange one that I 
must have a little time to consider it. Come 
back at four this afternoon, and I will give you 
an answer." 

I laid the case before a shrewd lawyer of my 



CALIKOKMA \\l-:i)I)IN(js. ^qq 

acquaintance, and asked his advice as to tlie le^ral 
effect. ^ 

-Marry them, of course," said he at once. 

The^ ceremony has no legal quality whatever, 
but It IS the business of a clergyman to minister to 
a mind diseased, and it is your duty to comply 
with the unhappy woman's wish." 

The gentleman returned at four, and I told him 
to come at ten the next morning, promisincr to 
perform the wished-for ceremony. 
^ They came, punctual to the minute. Exclud- 
ing a number of visitors, I locked my otfice door 
on the inside, and gave my attention to the strauL^e 
business befor^ me. They both began to weep 
as I began solemnly to read the marriage service. 
What tender recollections of earlier and happier 
days crowded upon their minds I know not. 
Iheir emotion increased, and they were sobbincr 
in each other's arms when 1 had*^ finished. She 
was radiant through her tears, and he looked like 
a repenting sinner who had receiyed absolution. 
1 he form for the celebration of the office of holy 
matrimony as laid down in the ritual of my Church 
never sounded so exquisitely beautiful noV seemed 
so impressive before; and when he put a twentv- 
dollar gold piece in my hand and departed,^! 
thought remarriage might be wise and proper un- 
der some circumstances. 

I had the pleasure of officiating at the nuptials 
ot a goodly number of my colored friends in San 
Wancisco from about 1857 to 1861. One of 
these occasions impressed me particularly. A ven- 
erable black man, who was a deacon in the col- 
ored Baptist Church on Dupont Street, called at 
my office with a message requesting me to visit a 
certain number on Sacramento Street at a given 
hour for the purpose of uniting his brother and a 



3IO CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

colored lady in marriage. Remembering the 
crude old English couplet which says that 

When a wedding's in the case 
All else must give place, 

I did not fail to be on time. The company were 
assembled in the large basement room of a sub- 
stantial brick house. A dozen or fifteen colored 
people were prese it, and several white ladies had 
gathered in the hall to witness the important cere- 
mony. When the bridegroom and bride pre- 
sented themselves I was struck with their appear- 
ance. The bridegroom was a little old negro, not 
less than seventy years old, with very crooked 
legs, short forehead, and eyes scarcely larger than 
a pea, with a weird, *' varmintlike " face, show- 
ing that it would not take many removes to trace 
his pedigree back to Guinea. The bride was a 
tall, well-formed young black woman, scarcely 
twenty years old, whose hair (or wool) was elabo- 
rately carded and arranged, and who wore a white 
dress with a large red rose in her bosom. The 
aged bridegroom scarcely reached her shoulders 
as she stood by him in gorgeous array. They 
made a ludicrous couple, and I observed a smile 
on the faces of the intelligent colored people 
standing around. He was the queerest bride- 
groom I had ever met, as he stood there peering 
about him with those curious little eyes. The 
bride herself seemed to take in the comic element 
of the occasion, for her fat face wore a broad 
grin. I began the ceremon}-, keeping down any 
tendency to unseemly levity by throwing extra 
emphasis and solemnit}' into my voice. This is a 
device to which others have resorted under simihir 
circumstances. Mastering my risibles, I was pro- 
ceeding with elevated voice and special emphasis, 
when the bridegroom, looking up at me witli those 



CAl.ll-ORMA WEDDINGS. 3II 

little beads of eyes, broke in with this remark, 
chuckling as he spoke: '* 1 ain't scared. I's 
been '^ono- here befo\'' 

It was the lirst time that I ever broke down in a 
serious service. We all laughed, the bridegroom 
and bride joining in heartily, and the tittering did 
not subside until the ceremony was ended. Evi- 
dently the old sinner had a history. How often 
he had been married — after a fashion — it would 
have been hazardous to guess. No doubt he had 
been there before. 



HOW THE MONEY CAME. 



IT was in the early seventies. I was living on 
Bay Street, North Beach, San Francisco. 
Not long before, while driving on the Ala- 
meda — that beautiful avenue, shaded b}- the 
w^ide-branching willows planted by the first 
Jesuit fathers of San Jose and Santa Clara, for 
which good work 1 hereby give my humble thanks 
— I had met with an accident that nearly ended 
my earthly experiences. The long-limbed, four- 
year-old trotter, taking fright by the collision of a 
hind wheel of the buggy with a heavily loaded 
lumber wagon, plunged forward, tearing off the 
entangled wheel; and then with a few frantic 
leaps came a crash, and I found mj^self describing 
a circle in the air. When I came down there was 
a blank in my recollection of events for I know 
net how long. When I regained my conscious- 
ness, a badly dislocated shoulder, and many 
bruises and wrenches, attested the combined ef- 
fects of gravity, propulsion, and concussion on my 
corpus. I was taken to the house of my old 
friend, P. T. McCabe, where Drs. Caldwefl and 
Thorne adjusted the dislocation and mollified my 
bruises. Blessings on the memory of the master 
and mistress of that hospitable home, where true 
hospitality always smiled a welcome, and from 
which no needy man, woman, or child was ever 
turned away empty-handed ! 

Long weeks of pain followed the accident. 
The suroreons of San Francisco even talked of 
amputation at the shoulder joint, doubtless a very 
(312) 



HOW THE MONKY CAME. 313 

interesting operation scientifically considered, but 
one that I felt I would rather read of than endure 
in person. I objected, the doctors desisted, and 
this Sketch is penned with that same right arm, 
with an occasional twinge that reminds me of that 
ride and smash-up twenty years ago. 

I was just able to move about the house, with 
my arm in a sling, walking softly, and trying to 
exhibit the patience that I had so often com- 
mended to other persons. One day as I stood 
looking out of the bay window upon the ever rest- 
less, ever changing sea, it suddenly occurred to 
me that on that very day I had to make a payment 
at the bank of one hundred and eighty dollars, or 
serious trouble would result. The money was not 
at hand; I was unable to go down into the city to 
attend to that or any other business matter; there 
was nobody to send; the hour for the bank to 
close for the day would soon come — what could I 
do? To my inner ear a voice seemed to speak: 
"You profess to believe in prayer; so you have 
been teaching others for man}^ years ; why not 
pray?" Heeding the voice still and small — this 
voice is alwa3'S still and small — I sank into a 
chair, and, bowing my head upon the window sill, 
prayed. A calm indescribably sweet came upon 
me. It was the answering touch. (Whoso hath 
felt it will understand.) Lifting my head, I looked 
out, keeping my seat by the window. Across the 
flat between the end of the street-car line and my 
house I observed a man and a woman walking 
slowly along as if they were conversing on some 
subject of mutual interest. When they reached 
the foot of the terrace they turned and began to 
climb the steps that led up to our door. In an- 
swer to their ring the servant opened to them, and 
in reply to their inquiry told them that I was at 



314 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

home, ushering them into the room where I was 
sitting. 

** We are from Humboldt County," said the 
man. *' By agreement we have met here in San 
Francisco to be married, and we want you to per- 
form the ceremony." 

'* Yes," said the lady, who was a rapid talker. 
*' We are both strangers in the city; and when we 
left the Lick House awhile ago to find a minister 
we were at a loss, but your name suddenly came- 
into my mind in connection with the recollection 
of some correspondence between us when you 
were superintendent of public instruction and I 
was a teacher in the public school at Eureka. 
We agreed that if we could find you we would 
like to have you marry us, and here we are." 

She was very pretty, and smiled very sweetly as 
she spoke. 

" Do you feel strong enough to go through with 
it?" asked the expectant bridegroom. 

A glance at the pretty schoolmarm's beaming 
face inspired me with fresh strength and resolu- 
tion, and I replied that I thought I could go 
through with the ceremony; and I did, he looking 
triumphant and she radiant at the close. 

When the last words were said, declaring them 
to be man and wife together, in the name of the 
Holy Trinity, he thrust his hand into his pocket, 
and taking out what seemed to me a whole hand- 
ful of gold, with something of a flourish, he 
handed it to me, saying: " Will that do? If not, 
there's plenty more where it came from." 

I told him that I thou^i^ht it would do. 

In a few moments they left, as happy-looking a 
pair as I ever met. 

Restraining my curiositv until they had de- 
scended the first flight of steps, I then counted 



HOW THE MONEY CAME. 315 

tlie marriage fee. There were just ten twenty- 
dollar gold pieces, making the one hundred and 
eighty dollars that I needed, and twenty dollars 
more for good measure. 

That was the way the money came. 

At the very time my name suddenly occurred to 
the mind of the pretty little school-teacher I was 
bowed in prayer in the bay window at North 
Beach. Free agency is never overborne; but by 
the processes of memory, by suggestive touches 
and solicitations, it is moved upon by the Holy 
Spirit. A true prayer touches God, and he 
touches everything in the universe. 

If there is here a suggestion for some reader, he 
w^ill know what it is. 



HAVING SOME FUN. 



THE stage stopped to change horses on the 
road from Clear Lake to the coast. As I 
got out to stretch my cramped Hmbs, I 
noticed a group of rough-looking men 
across the way, watching the antics of a 
half-drunken young man with bushy red whiskers, 
mounted on a lean and sinewy California mustang, 
which was cavorting around in the style peculiar 
to that animal. The most of the men had drunk 
enough whisky to bring out all their vulgarit}', pro- 
fanity, and devilishness. 

" Go it, Jim! " said one. 

"You could ride the devil himself! " said an- 
other, as the horse and rider went on with the 
performance that so excited their drunken admi- 
ration. 

Suddenly the animal, planting his fore feet firm- 
ly, and stiffening himself all over, refused to 
move. It is the nature of a mustang to go when 
he wants to, and to stop when he chooses so to do. 
He generally has his own way when his mind is 
made up. This mustang had evidently made up 
his mind to stay where he was. Despite the ener- 
getic spurrings and furious oaths of his rider, he 
budged not. With those stiffened legs firmly set, 
and the white of his wicked eyes visible, he stood 
immovable. 

" Here, hold him a minute, boys," said the an- 
gry and inebriated horseman, " and we'll have 
some fun." 

Dismounting, and giving the bridle to one of the 
(31U) 



HAVING SOME FUN. 317 

group, he went into the barroom and brought out 
a can of kerosene oil, which he proceeded to pour 
over the neck, breast, belly, flanks, and legs of 
the mustang; then remounting, he drew a match 
from his pocket, and igniting it by drawing it 
across his sleeve, he applied it to the animal's 
neck. Instantly the flames spread over the poor 
beast's body, and maddened by the pain, it fran- 
tically leaped, reared, and plunged, the bystand- 
ers applauding and laughing with the idiocy and 
brutality of drunkenness. It was drunken human 
nature. Nothing lower nor more cruel exists this 
side of the bottomless pit, and it makes a hell wher- 
ever it is. The mustang in its agony at last reared 
on its hind feet perpendicularly, and then fell 
backward upon its rider, who, with the ready in- 
stinct of an habitual horseman, drew his feet from 
the stirrups as he fell. The next moment the 
mustang was up again, dashing down the road 
with stirrups dangling, smoking sides, and eye- 
balls flashing. The rider did not move. His 
neck was broken. The blank, open e5^es stared 
into the calm, pitying heavens. The "fun" was 
over. 



AT THE END. 




MONG my acquaintances at San Jose, in 
1863, was a young Kentuckian who had 
come down from the mines in bad health. 
The exposure of mining hfe had been too 
severe for him. It took iron constitu- 
tions to stand all day in almost ice-cold water up 
to the waist w^ith a hot sun pouring down its burn- 
ing rays upon the head and upper part of the 
body. Many a poor fellow^ sunk under it at once, 
and after a few days of fever and delirium was 
taken to the top of an adjacent hill and laid to 
rest by the hands of strangers. Others, crippled 
by rheumatic and neuralgic troubles, drifted into 
the hospitals of San Francisco, or turned their 
faces sadly toward the old homes which they had 
left with buoyant hopes and elastic footsteps. 
Others still, like this young Kentuckian, came 
down into the valleys with the hacking cough and 
hectic flush to make a vain struggle against the de- 
stroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing 
often a vain hope of recovery to the very last. 
Ah, remorseless flatterer! as I write these lines, 
the images of your victims crowd before my vis- 
ion : the strong men that grew weak and pale 
and thin, but fought to the last inch for life; the 
noble youths who were blighted just as they be- 
gan to bloom ; the beautiful maidens etherealized 
into almost more than mortal beauty by the breath 
of the death angel, as autumn leaves, touched by 
the breath of winter, blush with the beauty of de- 
cay. My young friend indulged no false hopes. 
(318) 



AT THE END. 



319 



He knew he was doomed to early death, and did 
not shrink from the thought. One day, as we 
were conversing in a store up town, he said: *' I 
know that I have at most but a few months to Hve, 
and I want to spend them in making preparation 
to die. You will oblige me by advising me what 
books to read. I want to get clear views of what 
I am to do, and then do it." 

It need scarcely be said that I most readily 
complied with his request, and that first and chief- 
ly I advised him to consult the Bible, as the 
light to his path and the lamp to his feet. Other 
books were suggested, and a word with regard to 
prayerful reading was given, and kindly received. 

One day I went over to see my friend. Enter- 
ing his room, I found him sitting by the fire with 
a table by his side, on which was lying a Bible. 
There was an unusual flush in his face, and his 
eye burned with unusual brightness. 

" How are you to-day? " I asked. 

" I am annoyed, sir; I am indignant," he said. 

*' What is the matter?" 

*' Mr. , the preacher, has just left me. 

He told me that my soul cannot be saved unless I 
perform two miracles: I must, he said, think of 
nothing but religion, and be baptized by immer- 
sion. I am very weak, and cannot fully control 
my mental action — my thoughts will wander in 
spite of myself. As to being'put under the water, 
that would be immediate death ; it would bring on 
a hemorrhage of the lungs, and kill me." 

He leaned his head on the table and panted lor 
breath, his thin chest heaving. I answered : '' Mr. 
is a good man, but narrow. He meant kind- 
ly in the foolish words he spoke to you. No man, 
sick or well, can so control the action of his mind 
as to force his thoughts wholly into one channel. 



320 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

I cannot do it; neither can any other man. God 
requires no such absurdity of you or anybody else. 
As to being immersed, that seems to be a phys- 
ical impossibility, and he surely does not demand 
what is impossible. My friend, it really makes 

little difference what Mr. says, or what I say, 

concerning this matter. What does God say? " 

I took up the Bible, and he turned a face upon 
me expressing the most eager interest. The bless- 
ed book seemd to open of itself to the very words 
that were wanted. " Like as a father pitieth his 
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." 
"He know^eth our frame, and remembereth that 
we are dust." *' Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
come ye to the waters." 

Glancing at him as I read, I was struck with 
the intensity of his look as he drank in every 
word. A traveler dying of thirst in the desert 
could not clutch a cup of cold water more eagerly 
than he grasped these tender words of the pitying 
Father in heaven. 

I read the words of Jesus: '* Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give 3^ou rest." "Him that cometh unto me I 
will in no wise cast out." "That is what God 
says to you, and these are the only conditions of 
acceptance. Nothing is said about anything but 
the desire of your heart and the purpose of your 
soul. O my frend, these words are iov you!^'' 

The great truth flashed upon his mind and 
flooded it with light. He bent his head and wept. 
We knelt and prayed together, and when we rose 
from our knees he said softly, as the tears stole 
down his face: " It is all right now; I see it clear- 
ly; I see it clearly! " 

We quietly clasped hands and sat in silent sym- 
pathy. There was no need for words from me; 



AT THE END. 



3^1 



God had spoken, and that was enough. Our hearts 
were singing together the song without words. 

" You have found peace at the cross; let noth- 
ing disturb it," I said, as he pressed my hand at 
the door as we left. 

It never was disturbed. The days that had 
dragged so wearily and anxiously during the long, 
long months were now full of brightness. A 
subdued joy shone in his face, and his voice was 
low and tender as he spoke of the blessed change 
that had passed upon him. The book whose 
words had been light and life to him was often in 
his hand, or lay open on the little table in his 
room. He had never lost his hold upon the great 
truth he had grasped, nor abated in the fullness 
of his joy. I was with him the night he died. 
He knew the end was at hand, and the thought 
filled him with solemn joy. His eyes kindled, and 
his wasted features fairly blazed with rapture as 
he said, holding my hand with both of his: *' I 
am glad it will all soon be over. My peace has 
been unbroken since that morning when God sent 
you to me. I feel a strange, solemn joy at the 
thought that I shall soon know all." 

Before daybreak the great mystery was disclosed 
to him, and as he lay in his cofhn next day the 
smile that lingered on his lips suggested the thought 
that he had caught a hint of the secret while yet 
in the body. 

Among the casual hearers that now and then 
dropped in to hear a sermon in Sonora, in the 
earl}^ days of m}^ ministry there, was a man who 
interested me particularly. He was at that time 
editing one of the papers of the town, which 
sparkled with the flashes of his versatile genius. 
He was a true Bohemian, who had seen many 
countries, and knew life in almost all its phases. 
21 



322 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

He had written a book of adventure which found 
many readers and admirers. An avowed skeptic, 
he was yet respectful in his allusions to sacred 
things, and I am sure his editorial notices of the 
pulpit efforts of a certain young preacher who had 
much to learn were more than just. He was a 
brilliant talker, with a vein of enthusiasm that was 
very delightful. His spirit was generous and 
frank, and I never heard from his lips an unkind 
word concerning any human being. Even his 
partisan editorials were free from the least tinge 
of asperity — and this is a supreme test of a sweet 
and courteous nature. In our talks he studiously 
evaded the one subject most interesting to me. 
With gentle and delicate skill he parried all my 
attempts to introduce the subject of religion in our 
conversation. 

'' I can't agree with you on that subject, and we 
will let it pass," he would say with a smile, and 
then he would start some other topic, and rattle on 
delightfully in his easy, rapid way. 

He could not stay long at a place, being a con- 
firmed wanderer. He left Sonora, and I lost sight 
of him. Retaining a very kindly feeling for this 
gentle-spirited and pleasant adventurer, I was loth 
thus to loose all trace of him. Meeting a friend 
one day, on J Street, in the city of Sacramento, 

he said : '* Your old friend D is at the Golden 

Eagle hotel. You ought to go and see him." 

I went at once. Ascending to the third story, I 
found his room, and, knocking at the door, a feeble 
voice bade me enter. I was shocked at the spec- 
tacle that met my gaze. Propped in an armchair 
in the middle of the room, wasted to a skeleton, 
and of a ghastly pallor, sat the unhappy man. 
His eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness, 
and his features wore a look of intense suffering. 



AT THE END. 



323 



*' You have come too late, sir," he said, before 
I had time to say a word. ** You can do me no 
good now. I have been sitting in this chair three 
weeks. I could not live a minute in any other 
position. Hell could not be worse than the tor- 
tures I have suffered! I thank you for coming to 
see me, but you can do me no good — none, none I" 

He paused, panting for breath; and then he con- 
tinued in soliloquizing way: '' I played the fool, 
making a joke of what was no joking matter. It 
is too late. I can neither think nor pray, if pray- 
ing would do any good. I can only suffer, suffer, 
suffer!" 

The painful interview soon ended. To every 
cheerful or hopeful suggestion which I made he 
gave but one reply: " Too late !" 

The unspeakable anguish of his look, as his eyes 
followed me to the door, haunted me for many a 
day, and the echo of his w^ords, " Too late ! " lin- 
gered sadl}^ upon my ear. When I saw the an- 
nouncement of his death, a few days afterwards, I 
asked myself the solemn question whether I had 
dealt faithfully with this light-hearted, gifted man 
when he was within my reach. His last look is 
before me now, as I pencil these lines. 

*' John A is dying over on the Portrero, and 

his family wants you to go over and see him." 

It was while I was pastor in San Francisco. 

A was a member of my church, and lived on 

what was called the Portrero, in the southern part 
of the city, beyond the Long Bridge. It was after 
night when I reached the little cottage on the slope 
above the bay. 

'* He is dying and delirious," said a member of 
the family as I entered the room where the sick 
man lay. His wife, a woman of peculiar traits 
and great religious fervor, and a large number of 



324 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

children and grandchildren were gathered in the 
dying man's chamber and the adjoining rooms. 
The sick man — a man of large and powerful frame 
— was restlessly tossing and moving his limbs, mut- 
tering incoherent words, with now and then a burst 
of uncanny laughter. When shaken, he would 
open his eyes for an instant, make some meaning- 
less ejaculation, and then they would close again. 
The wife was very anxious that he should have a 
lucid interval while I was there. 

" O I cannot bear to have him die without a 
word of farewell and comfort ! " she said weeping. 

The hours wore on, and the dying man's pulse 
showed that he was sinking steadily. Still he lay 
unconscious, moaning and gibbering, tossing from 
side to side as far as his failing strength permitted. 
His wife would stand and gaze at him a few mo- 
ments, and then walk the floor in agony. 

" He can't last much longer," said a visitor, who 
felt his pulse and found it almost gone, while his 
breathing became more labored. We waited in 
silence. A thought seemed to strike the wife. 
Without saying a word, she climbed upon the bed, 
took her dying husband's head upon her lap, and, 
bending close above his face, began to sing. It 
was a melody I had never heard before — low and 
sweet and quaint. The effect was weird and 
thrilling as the notes fell tremulously from the sing- 
er's lips in the hush of that dead hour of the night. 
Presently the dying man became more quiet, and 
before the song was finished he opened his eyes as 
a smile swept over his face, and as his glance fell 
on me I saw that he knew me. He called my 
name, and looked up in the face that bent above 
his own, and kissed it. 

" Thank God !*' his wife exclaimed, her hot tears 
falling on his face, that wore a look of strange se- 



AT THE END. 325 

renity. Then she half whispered to me, her face 
beaming with a softened Hght: "That old song 
was one we used to sing together when we were first 
married, in Baltimore." 

On the stream of music and memory he had 
floated back to consciousness, called by the love 
whose instinct is deeper and truer than all the 
science and philosophy in the world. 

At dawn he died, his mind clear, the voice of 
prayer in his ears, and a look of rapture in his face. 

j)an W , whom I had known in the mines 

in the early days, had come to San Jose about the 
time my pastorate in the place began. He kept a 
meat market, and was a most genial, accom- 
modating, and good-natured fellow. Everybody 
liked him, and he seemed to like everybody. His 
animal spirits were unfaihng, and his face never 
revealed the least trace of worry or care.^ He 
*' took things easy," and never quarreled with his 
luck. Such men are always popular, and Dan was 
a general favorite, as the generous and honest fel- 
low deserved to be. Hearing that he was very 
sick, I went to see him. I found him very low, 
but he greeted me with a smile. 

*' How are you to-day, Dan?" I asked, in the 
offhand way of the old times. 

'' It is aUup with me, I guess," he replied, paus- 
ing to get breath between the words; " the doctor 
says I can't get out of this — I must leave in a day 
or two." He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, indi- 
cating that he intended to take death, as he had 
taken life, easy. 

'* How do you feel about changing worlds, my 
old friend? " 

'* I have no say in the matter. / have got to go, 
and that is all there is of it.'' 

That was all I ever got out of him. He told me 



326 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

he had not been to church for ten years, as it 
was not in his Hne. He did not understand mat- 
ters of that sort, he said, as his business was run- 
ning a meat market. He intended no disrespect 
to me or to sacred things — this was his way of put- 
ting the matter in his simple-heartedness. 

" Shall I kneel here and pray with you?'' I 
asked. 

" No; you needn't take the trouble, parson," he 
said gentty; "you see I've got to go, and that's 
all there is of it. I don't understand that sort of 
thing; it's not in my line, you see. I've been in 
the meat business." 

" Excuse me, my old friend, if I ask if you do 
not, as a dying man, have some thoughts about 
God and eternity?" 

'' That's not in my line, and I couldn't do much 
thinking now anyway. It's all right, parson — I've 
got to go, and Old Master will do right about it." 

Thus he died without a prayer, and without a 
fear, and his case is left to the theologians who can 
understand it, and to the '* Old Master," who will 
do right. 

I was called to see a lady who was dying at 
North Beach, San Francisco. Her historv was a 
singularly sad one, illustrating in a startling man- 
ner the ups and downs of California life. From 
opulence to poverty, and from poverty to sorrow, 
and from sorrow to death — these were the acts in 
the drama, and the curtain was about to fall on 
the last. On a previous visit I had pointed the 
poor sufferer to the cross of Christ, and prayed at 
her bedside, leaving her calm and tearful. Her 
only daughter, a sweet, fresh girl of eighteen, had 
two years before betrothed herself to a young man 
from Oregon, who had come to San Francisco to 
study a profession. The mother had expressed 



AT THE END. 327 

a desire to see them married before her death, 
and I had been sent for to perform the ceremony. 

'* She is unconscious, poor thing!" said a lady 
who was in attendance, " and she will fail of her 
dearest wish.'' 

The dying mother lay with a flushed face, breath- 
ing painfully, with closed eyes, and moaning pite- 
ously. Suddenly her eyes opened, and she glanced 
inquiringly around the room. They understood 
her. The daughter and her betrothed were sent 
for. The mother's face brightened as they entered 
and she turned to me and said, in a faint voice: 
" Go on with the ceremony, or it will be too late 
for me. God bless you, darling!" she added as 
the daughter bent down sobbing and kissed her. 

The bridal couple kneeled together by the bed 
of death, and the assembled friends stood around 
in solemn silence, while the beautiful formula of the 
Church was repeated, the dying mother's eyes rest- 
ing upon the kneeling daughter with an expression 
of unutterable tenderness. When the vows were 
taken that made them one, and their hands were 
clasped in token of plighted faith, she drew them 
both to her in a long embrace, and then almost 
instantly closed her eyes with a look of infinite 
restfulness, and never opened them again. 

Of the notable men I met in the mines in the 
early days, there was one who piqued and puzzled 
my curiosity. He had the face of a saint with the 
habits of a "debauchee. His pale and studentlike 
features were of the most classic mold, and their 
expression singularly winning, save when at times 
a cynical sneer would suddenly flash over them 
like a cloud-shadow over a quiet landscape. He 
was a lawyer, and stood at the head of the bar. 
He was an orator whose silver voice and magnetic 
qualities often kindled the largest audiences into 



328 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

the wildest enthusiasm. Nature had denied him 
no gift of body or mind requisite to success in Ufe, 
but there was a fatal weakness in his moral consti- 
tution. He was an inveterate gambler, his large 
professional earnings going into the coffers of the 
faro and monte dealers. His violations of good 
morals in other respects were flagrant. He worked 
hard by day, and gave himself up to his vices at 
night. Public opinion was not ver}^ exacting in 
those days, and his failings were condoned by a 
people who respected force and pluck, and made 
no close inquiries into a man's private life, because 
it would have been no easy thing to find one who, 
on the score of innocence, was entitled to cast the 
first stone. Thus he lived from year to year, in- 
creasing his reputation as a lawyer of marked 
ability and as a politician whose eloquence in 
every campaign was a tower of strength to his 
party. His fame spread until it filled the State, 
and his money still fed his vices. He never dran^:, 
and that cool, keen intellect never lost its balance, 
or failed him in any encounter on the hustings or 
at the bar. I often met him in public, but he 
never was known to go inside a church. Once, 
when in a street conversation I casually made some 
reference to religion, a look of displeasure passed 
over his face, and he abruptly left me. 1 was 
agreeably surprised when, on more than one occa- 
sion, he sent me a substantial token of good will, 
but I was never able to analyze the motive that 
prompted him to do so. This remembrance soft- 
ens the feelings with which these lines are penciled. 
He went to San Francisco, but there was no change 
in his life. 

"It is the old story," said an acquaintance of 
whom I made inquiry concerning him: *' he has 
a large and lucrative practice, and the gamblers 



AT THE END. 



329 



get all he makes. He is getting gray, and he is 
lailing a little. He is a strange being." 

It happened afterwards that his office and mine 
were in the same building and on the same floor. 
As we met on the stairs he would nod to me and 
pass on. I noticed that he was indeed " failing." 
He looked weary and sad, and the cold or defiant 
gleam in his steel-gray eyes was changed into a 
wistful and painful expression that was very pa- 
thetic. I did not dare to invade his reserve with 
any tender of sympathy. Joyless and hopeless as 
he might be, I felt instinctively that he would play 
out his drama alone. Perhaps this was a mistake 
on my part: he may have been hungry for the word 
I did not speak. God knows. I was not lacking 
in proper interest in his well-being, but I have 
since thought in such cases it is safest to speak. 

'' What has become of B ?" said my land- 
lord one day as we met in the hall. '* I have been 
here to see him several times, and found his door 
locked, and his letters and newspapers have not 
been touched. There is something the matter, I 
fear." 

Instantly I felt somehow that there was a tragedy 
in the air, and I had a strange feeling of awe as I 
passed the door of B 's room. 

A policeman was brought, the lock forced, and 
we went in. A sickening odor of chloroform filled 
the room. The sight that met our gaze made us 
shudder. He was lying across the bed, partly 
dressed, his head thrown back, his eyes staring 
upward, his limbs hanging loosely over the bedside. 

" Is he dead? " was asked in a whisper. 

" No," said the officer, with his finger on B 's 

wrist; "he is not dead yet, but he will never wake 
out of this. He has been lyinfj thus two or three 
ays. 



330 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

A physician was sent for, and all possible efforts 
made to rouse him, but in vain. About sunset the 
pulse ceased to beat, and it was only a lump of 
lifeless clay that lay there so still and stark. This 
was his death ; the mystery of his life went back 
beyond my knowledge of him, and will only be 
known at the judgment day. 

One of the gayest and brightest of all the young 
people gathered at a May day picnic, just across 

the bay from San Francisco, was Ada D . The 

only daughter of a wealthy citizen, living in one 
of the lovely valleys beyond the coast range of 
mountains, beautiful in person and sunny in tem- 
per, she was a favorite in all the circle of her asso- 
ciations. Though a petted child of fortune, she 
was not spoiled. Envy itself was changed into 
affection in the presence of a spirit so gentle, un- 
assuming, and loving. Recently graduated from 
one of the best schools, her graces of character 
matched the brilliance of her pecuniary fortune. 

A few days after the May day festival, as I was 
sitting in my office, a little before sunset, there was 
a knock at the door, and before I could answer 
the messenger entered hastily saying: "I want 
you to go with me at once to Amador Valley. 

Ada D is dying, and wishes to be baptized. 

We just have time for the six o'clock boat to take 
us across the bay, where the carriage and horses 
are waiting for us. The distance is thirty miles, 
and we must run a race against death." 

We started at once: no minister of Jesus Christ 
hesitates to obey a summons Hke that. We reached 
the boat while the last taps of the last bell w^ere 
being given, and were soon at the landing on the 
opposite side of the bay. Springing ashore, w^e en- 
tered the vehicle which was in readiness. Grasp- 
ing the reins, my companion touched up the spir- 



AT THE END. 



331 



ited team, and we struck across the valley. My 
driver was an old Californian, skilled in all horse 
craft and road craft. He spoke no word, putting 
his soul and body into his work, determined, as he 
had said, to make the thirty miles by nine o'clock. 
There was no abatement of speed after we struck 
the hills: what was lost in going up was regained 
in going down. The mettle of those California- 
bred horses was wonderful; the quick beating of 
their hoofs upon the graveled roads was as regular 
as the motion of machinery, steam-driven. It was 
an exciting ride, and there was a weirdness in the 
sound of the night breeze floating by us, and ghost- 
ly shapes seemed looking at us from above and 
below, as we wound our way through the hills, 
w^hile the bright stars shone like funeral tapers 
over a world of death. Death! how vivid and 
awful was its reahty to me as I looked up at those 
shining worlds on high, and then upon the earth 
wrapped in darkness below! Death! his sable 
coursers are swift, and we may be too late ! The 
driver shared my thoughts, and lashed the panting 
horses to yet greater speed. My pulses beat rap- 
idly as I counted the moments. 

'*Here we are! " he exclaimed, as we dashed 
down the hill and brought up at the gate. '*It is 
eight minutes to nine," he added, glancing at his 
watch by the lamplight shining through a window. 

y She is alive, but speechless, and going fast," 
said the father in a broken voice, as I entered the 
house. 

He led me to the chamber of the dying girl. 
The seal of death was upon her. I bent above 
her, and a look of recognition came into her eyes. 
Not a moment was to be lost. 

'' If you know me, my child, and can enter into 
the meaning of what I say, indicate the fact." 



332 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

There was a faint smile and a slight but signifi- 
cant inclination of the fair head as it lay envel- 
oped with its wealth of chestnut curls. With her 
hands folded on her breast, and her eyes turned 
upward, the dying girl lay in a listening attitude, 
while in a few words I explained the meaning of 
the sacred rite and pointed her to the Lamb of God 
as the one sacrifice for sin. The family stood 
round the bed in awed and tearful silence. As 
the crystal sacramental drops fell upon her brow 
a smile Hashed quickly over the pale face, there 
was a slight movement of the head — and she was 
gone ! The upward look continued, and the smile 
never left the fair, sweet face. We fell upon our 
knees, and the prayer that followed was not for 
her, but for the bleeding hearts around the couch 
where she lay smiling in death. 

Dave Douglass was one of that circle of Ten- 
nesseeans who took prominent parts in the early 
history of California. He belonged to the Sum- 
ner County Douglasses, of Tennessee, and had the 
family warmth of heart, impulsiveness, and cour- 
age that nothing could daunt. In all the polit- 
ical contests of the early days he took an active 
part, and v/as regarded as an unflinching and un- 
selfish partisan by his own party, and as an open- 
hearted and generous antagonist by the other. He 
was elected Secretary of State, and served the peo- 
ple with fidelity and efficiency. He was a man of 
powerful physical frame, deep-chested, ruddy- 
faced, blue-eyed, with just enough shagginess of 
eyebrows and heaviness of the under jaw to indi- 
cate the indomitable pluck which was so strong an 
element in his character. He was a true Doug- 
lass, as brave and true as anv of the name that 
ever wore the kilt or swung a claymore in the land 
of Bruce. His was a famous Methodist family in 



AT THE END. 



333 



Tennessee; and though he knew more of politics 
than piety, he was a good friend to the Church, 
and had regular preaching in the schoolhouse 
near his farm on the Calaveras River. All the 
itinerants that traveled that circuit knew *' Doug- 
lass's Schoolhouse" as an appointment, and 
shared liberally in the hospitality and purse of the 
General. (That was his title.) 

" Never give up the fight! " he said to me, with 
flashing eye, the last time I met him in Stockton, 
pressing my hand with a warm clasp. It was 
while I was engaged in the effort to build a church 
in that place, and I had been telling him of the 
difficulties I had met in the work. That word and 
hand clasp helped me. 

He was taken sick soon after. The disease had 
taken too strong a grasp upon him to be broken. 
He fought bravely a losing battle for several days. 
Sunday morning came, a bright, balmy day. ^ It 
was in the early summer. The cloudless sky was 
deep blue, the sunbeams sparkled on the bosom of 
the Calaveras, the birds were singing in the trees, 
and the perfume of the flowers filled the air and 
floated in through the open window to where the 
strong man lay dying. He had been affected with 
the delirium of fever during most of his sickness; 
but that was past, and he was facing death with 
an unclouded mind. 

'* I think I am dying," he said, half inquiringly. 

''Yes; is there anything we can do for you ? " 

His eyes closed for a few moments, and his lips 
moved as if in prayer. Opening his eyes, he said: 
'' Sing one of those old camp meeting songs." 

A preacher present struck up the hymn, *' Show 
pity, Lord, O Lord forgive." 

The dying man, composed to rest, lay with 
folded hands and listened with shortening breath 



334 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

and a rapt face, and thus he died, the words and 
the melody that had touched his boyish heart 
among the far-off hills of Tennessee being the last 
sounds that fell upon his dying ear. We may hope 
that on that old camp meeting song was wafted the 
prayer and trust of a penitent soul receiving the 
kingdom of heaven as a little child. 

During my pastorate at Santa Rosa one of my 
occasional hearers was John I . He was dep- 
uty sheriff of Sonoma County, and was noted for 
his quiet and determined courage. He was a man 
of few words, but the most reckless desperado 
knew that he could not be trifled with. When 
there was an arrest to be made that involved spe- 
cial peril, this reticent, low-voiced man was usually 
intrusted with the undertaking. He was of the 
good old Primitive Baptist stock from Caswell 
County, N. C, and had a lingering fondness 
for the peculiar views of that people. He had 
a weaknesr< for strong drink that gave him 
trouble at times, but nobody doubted his integrity 
any more than they doubted his courage. His 
wife was an earnest Methodist, one of a family of 
sisters remarkable for their excellent sense and 
strong religious character. Meeting him one day, 
just before my return to San Francisco, he said: 
** I am sorry you are going to leave Santa Rosa. 
You understand me; and if anybody can do me 
any good, you are the man." There was a tremor 
in his voice as he spoke, and he held my hand in a 
lingering grasp. 

Yes, I knew^ him. I had seen him at church on 
more than one occasion with compressed lips strug- 
gling to conceal the strong emotion he felt, some- 
times hastily wiping away an unbidden tear. The 
preacher, when his own soul is aglow and his sym- 
pathies all awakened and drawn out toward his 



AT rnj': i:ni). 335 

hearers, is almost clairvoyant at times in his per- 
ception of their inner thoughts. I understood this 
man, though no disclosure had been made to me 
in words. I read his eye, and marked the wistful 
and anxious look that came over his face when his 
conscience was touched and his heart moved. Yes, 
I knew him, for my sympathy had made me re- 
sponsive; and his words, spoken sadly, thrilled me 
and rolled upon my spirit the burden of a soul. 
His health, which had been broken by hardships 
and careless living, began to decline more rapidly. 
I heard that he had expressed a desire to see me, 
and made no delay in going to see him. I found 
him in bed and much wasted. 

*' I am glad you have come. I have been want- 
ing to see you," he said, taking my hand. " I 
have been thinking of my duty to God for a good 
while, and have felt more than anybody has sus- 
pected. I want to do what I can and ought to do. 
You have made this matter a study, and you ought 
to understand it. I want you to help me." 

We had many interviews, and I did what I could 
to guide a penitent sinner to the sinner's Friend. 
He was indeed a penitent sinner — shut out from 
the world and shut in with God, the merciful Fa- 
ther was speaking to his soul, and all its depths 
were stirred. The patient, praying wife had a 
wistful look in her eyes as I came out of his room, 
and I knew her thought. God was leading him, 
and he was receptive of the truth that saves. He 
had one difficulty. 

'* I hate meanness, or anything that looks like 
it. It does look mean for me to turn to religion 
now that I am sick, after being so neglectful and 
wicked when I was well." 

'* That thought is natural to a manly soul, but 
there is a snare in it. You are thinking what oth- 



336 CALIFORNIA SKETCHES. 

ers may say, and your pride is touched. You are 
dealing with God only. Ask only what will please 
Him. The time for a man to do his duty is when 
he sees it and feels the obligation. Let the past go ; 
you cannot undo it, but it may be forgiven. The 
present and an eternal future are yours, my friend. 
Do what will please God, and all will be right." 

The still waters w^ere reached, and his soul lay 
at rest in the arms of God. O sw^eet, sw^eet rest! 
infinitely sweet to the spirit long tossed upon the 
stormy sea of sin and remorse. O peace of God, 
the inflow into a human heart of the very life of 
the Lord ! It is the hidden m^-stery of love divine 
whispered to the listening ear of faith. It had 
come to him by its own law when he was ready to 
receive it. The great change had come; it looked 
out from his eyes and beamed from his face. 

He was baptized at night. The family had 
gathered in the room. In the solemn hush of the 
occasion the whispers of the night breeze could be 
heard among the vines and flowers outside, and the 
rippling of the sparkling waters of Santa Rosa 
Creek was audible. The sick man's face was lu- 
minous with the light that was from within. The 
s lemn rite was finished, a tender and holy awe 
filled the room ; it w^as the house of God and the 
gate of heaven. The wife, who was sitting near 
a window, rose, and noiselessly stepped to the bed, 
and without a word printed a kiss on her hus- 
band's forehead, while the joy that flushed her 
features told that the prayer of thirty years had 
been answered. We sang a hymn and parted with 
tears of silent joy. In a little while he crossed the 
river, where we may mingle our voices again by 
and by. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





0017064 1127 





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